Audiences won’t find much cooler soundtracks this year than Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist. It’s packed with soul classics, creating mood rather than nostalgia. To thank for such a dynamic soundtrack, music supervisor Stephanie Diaz-Matos.
Period music is one of Diaz-Matos’ favorite genres. Raedio‘s Head Music Supervisor previously worked on The Get Down, P-Valley, and The Horror of Dolores Roach. With Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, she’s pleased with how long the music got to breathe on the show, which she recently spoke with Immersive Media about.
When you’re negotiating, does that ever help when closing a deal, like, Hey, the song will really get its due on the show?
No, they just want more money [Laughs]. I will say [Otis Redding’s’] “Cigarettes and Coffee,” which closes episode three, was proving for whatever reason, unclearable. While the song had been used in other shows, it seems there was some disagreement over splits and ownership that had come to surface. There was a standoff.
Rarely do I get like this, but this use is so perfect, so I ended up having to call a very old and dear friend, Carrianne Marshall, who is now the COO of Warner Chapel. I was like, “I promise you, it is worth it. This is such a special use, and I would never otherwise call.” Her team was doing a great job, but I really had to ask people to be creative and make some non-precedential acquiescence to make it happen. I am so glad that we did. I’m so glad that they got on board.
Do you bump into that much red tape around a song that often, or was that a very special case?
There is always red tape around songs. Part of it is I do a lot of projects that are hip hop based, so always, you’re finding a writer who has 2%. You’re like, where are they? And you’re on Instagram and you’re trying Twitter; you’re really trying. Even now with pop music being so many writers, producers contributing, and samples, all this stuff is complicated.
It’s time consuming for sure. But this Otis Redding [song] was particularly odd because I reached out to my friend who had licensed it before in a movie, and he was like, “There was no problem.” But we were able to get it over the line.
Within the music supervisor community, are certain songs common knowledge that you just can’t get?
I think that there are songs you just don’t even touch it, for sure. I do think that we have plenty of forums where people can be like, “Hey, have you tried to clear this? Was anybody able to find this random 2% or 3% or whatever?” So yes, there’s a lot of chatter around, can you get that or can you not get that? And then if you think you can’t get it and you see someone else got it, you’re like, fuck, that hasn’t happened to me. But for me, it’s more like if I see someone has used the song that I was like, oh, I wanted to use that song.
How often does that happen?
It doesn’t happen a lot. When I was younger and starting out and Marie Antoinette came out, the Sofia Coppola movie, that was tough because I was like, that’s literally every single song I would’ve ever wanted to place in one movie, done perfectly. Once that happened I was like, alright, fine.
But sometimes there’s songs that I use and then I see them used somewhere else, and I’m like, okay, I think I use it better. It’s an experience watching things with me because I definitely am Shazaming or I’m like, “Ooh, they paid a lot of money for that.”
Still have a working cap on during a show or movie?
Sometimes. There’s a show now, Industry, which I only watch for the music. I literally do not understand the plot and it’s far too much sex for me to stomach, but the music I really love and think is special.
What’s an example of a song in Fight Night in which you were especially pleased by how it was used, maybe in a way that surprised you?
In Fight Night, there’s just a perfect example: they asked me to do the national anthem, and so we recorded it, and we shot it. It was supposed to be like a Donny Hathaway style version of it. Thought it sounded great. I had no idea that they were going to do a whole weave of it through taking the hostages and the opening robbery.
So when I saw that, that’s the stuff that’s really exciting when you’re like, oh my God, they took what I did and made it even more magical than I could have imagined. That’s part of why I feel like on Fight Night in particular, Craig Brewer, the director, and Shaye, the showrunner, and all the editors were all as excited and talented with music. That’s a big reason why there’s so much canvas for a lot of these songs, particularly in the first few episodes to breathe and make a meal out of.
The soundtrack is great. You got Sam and Dave, you got Marvin Gaye, James Brown. Typically, how is it dealing with estates?
Beyond Otis, there were no issues with any estates. I think it helps when you send in a request and you’re like, Sam Jackson and Kevin Hart, you know what I mean? It’s so stacked that even when we had to flag a drug reference or a gun reference, everything cleared without issue. No one has said explicitly that that’s why, or it helped, but I have a feeling that when you get a request and you see such an incredibly talented stacked cast with such a great concept that it’s like maybe they’re a little bit more open. So we really had no issues, which was awesome.
Does it also help being under the universal umbrella with Peacock? Easier to make calls or deals with Universal music?
We didn’t really have to call on universal television for favors, so I actually don’t know if they have that kind of relationship with the publishing company. When we did the Get Down, which was a Sony Pictures television show, they did a deal with Sony Music Publishing that helped us accomplish all the musical acrobatics that we did in that show. And that’s the first and last time that I’ve seen that synergy. Not to say that it doesn’t exist, but that was a very big flag in the ground for what the companies can do when they work together.
What were your first conversations with Shaye about the soundtrack, about the mood he wanted for the show?
When I first met Shaye, it was very much about his love for Atlanta and that this was a love letter to Atlana. He said, “I have the music that I was listening to when I was writing. It’s a lot of my mom’s music.” Cool. Send me your playlist. He sent me a seven hour playlist that I then downloaded, organized, put the years in, all of that stuff.
There was a moment where there was like, okay, maybe we’re going to do new songs and old songs, but quickly upon starting filming, we knew, it’s period. We should stay in the zone. We’ve got everything that we have, the music from that time period gives us everything that we need. So, that was our first pivot.
Usually I’m very detailed in, if this is the year that it’s set in, then I stick to that year and before. For Craig and for Shaye and for Heartbeat and [producer] Will Packer, all super involved, they were like, “It is a feeling that we’re going for more than an exact time period.” So that loosened the reins a bit. It’s how we were able to get the music to work the way it works in the show.
Is it a hard rule to break or, if a song is just a few years off and works, no problem?
I think so. I care, but I don’t know if other people care, but then you think about the blogosphere and you’re like, someone’s going to call you out, so it better be worth it. I personally love doing period shows. I know what the sandbox is and I know what I’m playing with. If I pivot or we do something different, it’s super intentional.
Did you have certain singers in mind for specific characters?
Normally, yes. James Brown for Sam Jackson coming out was a definite. It was always James Brown. Then we kind of really relied on score to tell the characters’ stories. We also did playlists for locations.
We decided that the Hyatt Club would be upscale, maybe more blue-eyed soul crooner or Jazzy vibes. For the House party, that’s where you hear the Sam and Dave, and that was just party music of the time. We did a lot by location, which would play into the mood.
For you, what about the show and the soundtrack just spoke really to your taste? And what songs on the playlist you made for the project really inspired you through the process, even if they didn’t make the show?
It’s just so soulful. I just found the playlist I had for the show, by the way. The inspirations were as far ranging as T. Rex’s “Get It On” to Sam and Dave. It was all over the place. They didn’t always make it, but it’s like The Impressions, Ike and Tina Turner, Aretha, King Curtis, the Meters, and Etta James.
For me, the soulfulness of the music inherently and the way that they really gave the music a large canvas, to just hear the song and play it over these great sequences, whether it’s a juxtaposition or something like “Cigarettes and Coffee,” where it really sets the tone, you don’t always get so much real estate for the songs.
To me, that was such a joy to see that everybody was like, these songs are a big part of the show. The costumes are spot on, the locations are spot on, and then the icing on the cake is these incredible songs that we just give a big, big amount of real estate too. They also budgeted properly.
You rarely ever hear a music supervisor say the budget was just right.
No, I rarely ever live that, but I credit this incredible team, right? Will Packer, Sabrina [Wind], who was the producer for Will, and then Heartbeat, and then Craig, and then Shaye, and then Universal Television, everybody wanted the music budget to be right. There wasn’t the usual, we’re stealing from the music budget and figuring it out. It paid off. It doesn’t feel grotesque, right? It doesn’t feel grotesque. It’s a woven part of the fabric of it.
Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist is now streaming on Peacock.
