“Hallelujah Heaven” artwork.
Legendary Entertainment
Jeymes Samuel has released the first single from the soundtrack of his upcoming feature film, The Book of Clarence. The track, “Hallelujah Heaven,” was written and produced by Samuel and features verses from three of several prominent artists who appear on the album: Lil Wayne, Buju Banton and Shabba Ranks.
“I didn’t know Wayne,” Samuel tells The Hollywood Reporter of working with the rapper. “I just sent Weezy the track and he said, ‘I’m doing it.’”
The Book of Clarence, set in 29 A.D. Jerusalem, stars LaKeith Stanfield in the lead role of Clarence, a trickster who, out of desperation to prove that he’s not a nobody to everyone around him, claims to be a new messiah. The biblical epic, which also counts Omar Sy, Caleb McLaughlin, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Anna Diop among its cast, explores themes of race and religion through both the storyline and musical score composed by Samuel who made his feature film debut with 2021’s neo-Western The Harder They Fall.
“”Hallelujah Heaven” appears in the film when we first see Jesus, the majestic Messiah, so I wanted three majestic human beings to feature on that track. I approached Lil Wayne, I approached Buju Banton, and I approached Shabba Ranks and they all resonated with the song and did it,” explains Samuel who recorded the song by himself several years prior.
“I perform every single song on this soundtrack, unlike The Hardly Fall. I just wrote and produced all of those songs,” adds the British singer-songwriter and filmmaker. “This movie was just too singular. Everything lived inside my head. When I take a backseat from performing, whether that be acting or singing, it’s because I know that there’s other people that can do it, but this soundtrack was too close to me.”
Still, Samuel invited a host of special collaborators to the project. Additional features on the forthcoming album include Kid Cudi and Jay-Z, who’s also a producer on the comedy-drama written, directed, and produced by Samuel.
“I couldn’t wait for each of them to send back their verse,” says Samuel. “When you’re working with featured artists, you hear the song in your mind but you’re doing a really poor impression of them. Then they deliver the track back and the song turns into something else and the next minute you’re shooting something that just started as an idea in my head.”
Such was Samuel’s process as he crafted the soundtrack for The Book of Clarence while also writing the movie script.
“I see music and I hear film,” he says. “As I’m writing the script, I’m listening to the dialogue and I’m taking melodies from the dialogue because there are no words and there’s no sentence that isn’t in a key, that isn’t in notes. Everything is melody.”
The Book of Clarence is set for release on Jan. 12, 2024.