“Winter is coming…”, as the characters of the fictional world of Westeros keep warning – but something even more chill is set to strike Game Of Thrones: hip-hop.
This week sees the world of George R.R. Martin’s wildly popular fantasy television and literary series colliding head-first with the world of rap, with the release of a Game Of Thrones-inspired mixtape.
Titled Catch The Throne, the new release has been commissioned by Time Warner, the producers of the HBO series, in the hopes it will “encourage more rap fans to watch the show,” according to the The Wall Street Journal (via Consequence Of Sound).
The 10-track collection draws from all Seven Kingdoms of the hip-hop world and features Big Boi of newly reunited hip hop duo Outkast, Common, and Wale, all delivering rhymes over beats layered with Game Of Thrones’ sweeping orchestral score and even dialogue sampled from the show – produced by New York’s Launch Point Records.
The rappers also accordingly adjust their usual subject matter to incorporate geek-worthy nods to the series’ epic clashes of swords, dragons, and the characters’ various power struggles.
“I tellin’ whoever messin’ with me, I can bring you that Khaleesi heat/Use my King, knack for words, as an actual sword/I can decapitate a rapper,” Wale spits on his Catch The Throne track.
Big Boi also dedicates a few lines to Daenerys Targaryen in his contribution, ‘The Mother of Dragons’. The Outkast member is also a diehard fan of the show, reading the books “to see what happens in the next season” of the HBO series, its fourth, which screens on 6th April. “I’m really happy. I get to be part of the process of one of my favorite shows,” he said at an event promoting the new release.
UPDATE 6/03: Big Boi’s ‘Mother Of Dragons’ has turned up online, have a listen.
Common is also an avid fanboy (particularly of Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister) and compares the Game Of Thrones mixtape to the early albums of 90s rap crew Wu-Tang Clan, which famously drew on old Kung Fu and obscure chopsocky flicks for inspiration and audio samples.
“20 years ago, Wu-Tang was breaking ground,” Common says. “Nowadays, people are open to anything. There are no limitations in hip-hop culture.”
As well as the rap royalty vying the throne Catch The Throne also stars a number of “Latin-crossover” acts, such as reggaeton artist Daddy Yankee and Bodega Bamz (but sadly missed out on snagging some great crossover appeal with Kanye West-eros or Snoop ‘The Hound’ Dogg – if you ask us). “I tellin’ whoever messin’ with me, I can bring you that Khaleesi heat…”
Bizarrely, the inspiration for Catch The Throne was to increase the HBO show’s viewership (as if 14.3 million viewers wasn’t enough already). Specifically, to extend its appeal to “include larger numbers of African-Americans, Latinos and the broader “urban” market,” as to The Journal.
“Our multicultural audiences are a very important part of our subscribers, and we don’t want to take them for granted,” says HBO’s Senior Vice President for Multicultural Marketing Lucinda Martinez, after Nielsen ratings showed that the show’s audience was over 76% white. (C’mon… is that really such a surprise?)
Martinez would not reveal how much HBO had paid for the artists to appear on the mixtape, though we suspect that the TV company, like Lannisters, always pay their debts.
It’s not the first time that the world of music has collided with Game Of Thrones. Brooklyn indie royalty The National contributed their take on ‘The Rains of Castamere’ in season two, while The Hold Steady performed ‘The Bear And The Maiden Fair’ in season three. Even Coldplay drummer Will Champion made a cameo in the infamous ‘Red Wedding’ episode.
Catch The Throne is being released online this Friday 7th March, but if you simply can’t wait you could always into Tone Deaf’s own ‘Songs Of Westeros’ Game Of Thrones playlist.
