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The Moonlight Soundtrack Has Been Chopped & Screwed

The Moonlight Soundtrack Has Been Chopped & Screwed

Moonlight

A drowsy, narcotized 21-track experience.

During last night's Academy Awards, Moonlight took home the evening's biggest honor, Best Picture, which proved there's surprisingly some justice in the world after all. Director Barry Jenkins also won a Best Adapted Screenplay trophy alongside co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney, who penned In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue--the original play that inspired the Oscar-winning movie.

Related | Before Oscar Gold: The Men of Moonlight On Making the Best Picture of the Year

The duo's script called for a specific sound: "Something old school but slowed (like Al Green's Let's Stay Together) chopped and screwed [...] Noise and fuzz in here, quads and subs as Black blasts something bass-heavy yet moving, think Erykah Badu Chopped and Screwed."

Adding to Moonlight's beautiful, fleeting music is The Chopstars, who previously created a woozy rework of Solange's A Seat At The Table with Beyonce's Lemonade. Inspired by the sound first introduced by Houston's late DJ Screw, who died in 2000, The Chopstars completely chopped and screwed Moonlight's soundtrack, Purple Moonlight, and the result is a drowsy, narcotized 21-track experience.

Related | Beyonce and Solange's Latest Albums Get Chopped & Screwed to Slow, Moody Perfection

"When you slow things down there's this emotion, this yearning," Jenkins told Pitchfork. "I think in some ways, in Moonlight, we're doing the same thing. There's this idea, especially in the story, of Black trying to project this idea of masculinity. But as his life slows down you get to see that he's just sitting there. When he actually talks to someone, he can't hide all this shit that's very deep down. I listen to chopped and screwed every day."

Listen to The Chopstars' Purple Moonlight, below.

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Justin Moran