For the music, Alex Steyermark and I were trying to find a great song that wouldn't necessarily be familiar nor cost a lot of money to do but still be a great song. Eventually, we came across Carla Thomas' "Comfort Me." It's a great song, but the way that she performs it is more up tempo than what I wanted it to be and a lot less intimate than what I wanted it to be in the movie. So I said, "Look, in the scene, there's only going to be a piano and it's going to be a very intimate thing and it's going to be a quiet moment for her father to observe her without her knowing it." When we were thinking about it, I don't remember what else we considered. We were thinking about a couple of Otis Redding songs, but of course they're very expensive. It ended up being an opportunity to play a song that not a lot of people knew but is still a great piece of music. It's sort of a cliché when you play songs that people know. It's great for musical purposes like when you have a song like "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Do Your Thing" but it's good to expose your audience to some songs they've never heard before.
In what ways can a movie soundtrack make or break a film? You mentioned that you had access to some songs that were familiar, but you also wanted to introduce new music. How hard is it to play such a delicate balancing act?
I wanted it to be that way. That was my vision for it, because how many times have you bought an album and thought: "Yo, this song is great. They don't play this on the radio at all. Why not? This song needs to be heard." I just wanted to have that. You suck people in with more familiar music but then there's music that's just great to hear like "Boogie Ain't Nuttin'." I don't know how many people knew that song before we put it back out there. I just wanted to have that opportunity. Of course, we had Cee-Lo write a song for us, "A Walk in the Park." That was hot. I thought that would be a hit but you know, that's why I'm in the movie industry and not in the music industry. I can't tell you what's a hit. When they told me about certain group earlier in my career, they played "Bills, Bills, Bills" for me when I was doing Best Man. They said this group is going to be huge. I was like, "With this?" [laughing] What drives the music industry is youth and I was beginning to not be a youth at that time.
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