Ré Olunuga on scoring Rise for Disney+: "It was a love letter to immigrant parents"

Having split his life between Lagos and Dublin, and now swapping Los Angeles and London depending on which film he's working on, Ré Olunuga brings a greatly needed wealth of culture, experience and creativity to the world of film composition. He recently scored Rise for Disney+, the remarkable true story of three fellow Nigerians, the Antetokounmpo brothers, who overcome a devastating journey from Africa, across Europe to America, where they become NBA sensations.

While Olunuga’s childhood home of Lagos, Nigeria, is no longer his main base of operations, he calls the city the “geographical heart” of everything he does. Considering himself to be a storyteller as well as a composer, he often draws on the vivid memories of growing up in Africa’s second most populous city to inspire his music.

“The entire country [of Nigeria] is musical,” Olunuga says in his very measured, calming voice. “Every single corner, every single part of the city was just immersed in this texture of sounds. Even the languages are musical, very tonal languages. So I definitely had a musical upbringing. I didn't have classical training or anything like that. It was just part of the lexicon that existed for communicating between people and understanding the world.”

Olunuga began his forays into music learning the piano, but simply playing the instrument left him with a yearning for something more. “I felt instinctively that the piano wasn't enough, there were more sounds that I wanted to add or feel. 

"I started playing with bands, I started to write music for different bands, and friends in Lagos. Then I went to school in Dublin and got into the music scene over there, and wrote for more bands. I was not thinking about music as a career, it was just something that I loved, something that I like to do.”

It’s fascinating to learn Olunuga moved from Lagos, which he describes as being completely musical on every corner, to Dublin, widely seen as one of the best cities in the world for busking and street performances — music is similarly inescapable when you wander the Irish capital’s centre.

“It was thanks to Dublin that I started to see music as a possible career,” he reminisces. “The other side of the coin of music being everywhere [in Nigeria] is that it wasn't something that was traditionally presented as a career option. It was something you did for fun. And this isn’t to say Nigeria isn't full of great musicians who have built amazing careers. 

"I just didn't see my particular approach to music being presented as a career. The thing that Dublin gave me was seeing people my age – 16 – who had locked into the idea of music as a career, pursuing narrative music or whatever version of music as a serious thing.”

Thanks to the nature of the music Olunuga was composing and the sorts of people he was rubbing shoulders with, particularly as he moved to London, he started to find work writing for production companies and for advertising and commercial films. 

His ensuing career of 16 years has seen him work on shows, films and projects from across the UK, the USA and Africa. It’s fair to say that when the huge opportunity in Rise for Disney+ came about, this very exciting composer had fully paid his dues.

The film is one of those stories where you double-take at the fact it’s a completely true story, and not simply the work of some genius script writer. It shares the story of the Antetokounmpo family, who perilously emigrated from Nigeria to Greece, and then the United States. Despite all the huge strife they encounter along the way, their sons discover they are exceptionally gifted at basketball, something which changes the family’s fortunes once in America.

“I read the script, and the first thing that I connected to was how much it was a love letter to immigrant parents, and how they sacrifice so much for better opportunities for the kids,” he says. “That really touched me, and it was a true story which shows the challenges the family faced and the hurdles that they had to navigate. But at the end of it, they had this realization of success. It's one of the most beautiful stories, fictional or real, that I've ever read.”

In the music, Olunuga paints a gorgeously cinematic sound with strings, piano, solo violin passages, percussion and interweaving themes. “I was really lucky that the director and I [Akin Omotoso] were on the same page in terms of the tone, how we wanted it to feel and what we wanted the audience to experience and take away from the film.”

Despite the very international settings of the film, Olunuga was careful to not fall into the film music trope you often hear where the music reflects the location of the scene in a very on the nose way. 

For example, if the characters arrive in Egypt, some composers might opt for very stereotypical Egyptian music with authentic instruments. Olunuga wanted his music for Rise to be more subtle and character-driven, with tasteful instrumentation as a nod to the Antetokounmpo family being from Nigeria.

“What I wanted to mirror was the fact that the family had created their own world,” he explains. “I think that's something a lot of immigrant families, or anyone who travels, can relate to. When traveling, you're always a little bit separate from everything else. 

"If you're having a crisis, or dealing with heartache, or feeling joy when you're in a country where you're not exactly from there and you're not as connected to everyone else, it's very interior. What was great about the film was that the family had each other. As soon as I could establish the palette of sounds for their story, it could remain the same all through the film. It almost didn’t matter where they were.”

Far more than a stereotype, it’s statistically the case that your typical film composer tends to be a middle-aged white man. The conversation turns to the great need for more voices from across the world in the realm of film scoring, and of course, the film industry at large. Not just diversity for diversity’s sake, but for a greater breadth of perspectives and creativity to breathe more life into the cinematic art form that is loved by so many.

“As an art lover myself and as a person who enjoys stories, I'm excited at the possibility of hearing far more voices,” Olunuga says. “Of all the art mediums that exist, film is the most wide reaching. People all over the world watch films and TV shows, as well as listen to music. So it really makes sense that more people in the world participate in that medium. 

"More people in the world have the opportunity. More options, more variety, more choice — not just to have diversity to be politically correct, but to make film the best industry it can possibly be.”

Olunuga then discusses his preliminary work in the studio for Rise, with Spitfire Audio transpiring to be an important part of that. “I basically only use Spitfire for orchestral stuff now,” he says. “Because I know what I want it to sound like in the eventual recordings. It’s important to have the directors and producers in the studio get a sense of what it’s going to sound like eventually, and be able to approve something that is as close to the final thing as possible.

“But really, what's most important for me when I'm writing is that I'm inspired by the sounds. And Spitfire has been one of my favorites so far. I have the entire Symphonic Library. But I also use the Solo Strings and the Chamber Strings, sometimes, because of my various orchestration choices that I make.”

Olunuga is moving onwards and upwards — he will be scoring Supacall, an upcoming British show from Rapman that follows the success of his directorial debut in Blue Story. And also 2023 film Drift with a host of stars including Cynthia Erivo and James Paxton. 

Thank goodness he is lending his voice, and stunningly unique sounds to the world of film, shaped by his international background. Rise is available to watch now on Disney+, and its wonderful score is also out now.

Rise image credits: Disney Enterprises, Inc. © 2022 Disney Enterprises, Inc and Patrick Redmond. © 2021 20th Century Studios.