Black Panther: The Album is a masterpiece that lives up to the hype surrounding the upcoming Marvel superhero movie.

Kendrick Lamar helped produce the soundtrack and appears on all of the tracks, providing strong bars and influential lyrics with help from many popular artists, such as Schoolboy Q, Travis Scott, 2 Chainz, and Future.

The soundtrack opens with the self-titled “Black Panther,” performed by a solo Kendrick Lamar. As the introduction to the album, Lamar does a great job of bringing examples of the tempos of the songs that follow, showing the listeners a small taste of what is to come.

After this track, listeners hear the slower R&B song “All The Stars,” but then are given a much more energetic song in “X.”

In just the first few songs, the artists explore multiple different elements of music, with more upbeat tempo modern hip-hop appearing later in the album on tracks such as “Opps,” “Paramedic!” and “King’s Dead.”

The Weeknd assists Lamar in closing the album with the dark track “Pray For Me,” wrapping up the 49 minutes with a eerie but satisfying outro, rapping about heroics and sacrifices.

This album is a great listen, which all hip-hop and R&B fans should take time to hear all the way through.