In case you forgot (there’s a lot going on right now), we’re getting a new Spike Lee Joint this week, and that’s exciting. Lee’s Da 5 Bloods arrives on Netflix this Friday, telling the story of four African-American Vietnam veterans who return to Vietnam on a mission to retrieve the body of their Squad Leader – and some buried gold, too. Ahead of the film’s release, Lee dropped Da 5 Bloods playlist on Spotify, featuring music from the film and tracks of Lee himself talking about the project.
“All the music in this film is very important to me,” Spike Lee says on this Da 5 Bloods playlist “From the very beginning, I understood the power of music. The power of music with images…music is essential to a Spike Lee Joint. The music…is another character, it’s another voice.” This playlist not only contains songs from the film, it also includes the score from Terence Blanchard, along with brief interludes of Lee talking about the soundtrack and film. And perhaps most impressive of all: there’s not a single song on here from Creedence Clearwater Revival, a band that seems to always get touted out when there’s a movie involving the Vietnam War. Hell, even Steven Spielberg used one of their songs for a brief Vietnam scene in The Post.
Along with other period-appropriate music on Da 5 Bloods playlist, the soundtrack also pulls six songs from Marvin Gaye’s album What’s Going On. “One of the greatest albums ever made,” Spike Lee says. “Marvin is a saint. He is godlike. That album spoke to us as the record of the time. I knew that The Music would help the narrative.”
“When I saw the first cut and I heard the Marvin Gaye songs, my first reaction was, ‘Right, this makes total sense,'” Terence Blanchard says in press notes for the film. “Next I started thinking about growing up in the ‘70s, and all the dudes I saw in my neighborhood that used to walk around with the tattered military jackets and shirts, who fought in Vietnam. They were struggling — emotionally, mentally. It brings me back to that period in time where African-Americans were struggling for certain rights. I still remember as a kid going someplace in Louisiana and seeing the water fountains that said, ‘For Coloreds Only.’ It’s that common theme of just trying to be recognized as equals, generation after generation. Frankly, you get tired of it.”
Da 5 Bloods tells “the story of four African-American Vets — Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) — who return to Vietnam. Searching for the remains of their fallen Squad Leader (Chadwick Boseman) and the promise of buried treasure, our heroes, joined by Paul’s concerned son (Jonathan Majors), battle forces of Man and Nature — while confronted by the lasting ravages of The Immorality of The Vietnam War.”
Look for Da 5 Bloods on Netflix June 12.
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