Lil Baby & Kirk Franklin – “We Win” (Prod. Just Blaze)
The first Space Jam soundtrack was, in retrospect, a wild ride. The 1996 film where Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny played basketball against cartoon aliens also had a tie-in album with R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” and Monica’s “For You I Will” and All-4-One’s “I Turn To You” on it. It had Seal singing the Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle.” It had the Spin Doctors and Biz Markie doing KC & The Sunshine Band’s “That’s The Way (I Like It).” It had Chris Rock and Barry White covering Cheech & Chong. It had D’Angelo and Quad City DJ’s and a Bugs Bunny rap song ghost-written by Jay-Z. It had a posse cut where B-Real, Method Man, Coolio, LL Cool J, and Busta Rhymes pretended to be the bad-guy aliens from the movie. Merely looking at its tracklist will make you feel like you’re having a stroke.
It’s hard to imagine that the forthcoming sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy, which comes out this summer and which stars LeBron James, will have a soundtrack as insane as that one. But it’s off to a good start! Today, we get the first single from the Space Jam sequel, and it’s got dominant Atlanta rapper Lil Baby teaming up with gospel superstar Kirk Franklin. More importantly, it’s got a beat from Just Blaze, the New Jersey producer whose thundering boom-bap style simply hasn’t been around enough lately.
“We Win” features a full gospel choir, and it’s also got one of those adrenaline-rush moments where we hear Just Blaze yelling his name when the beat kicks in. Kirk Franklin bellows encouragement, which is always welcome. Lil Baby’s Auto-Tuned sing-rap style is a weird match for this kind of uplifting thump, but it kind of works. Listen below.
The Space Jam: A New Legacy soundtrack is out 7/9 on Republic/Warner Bros. Space Jam: A New Legacy arrives in theaters and on HBO Max 7/16.