We Grown Now Music By Jay Wadley

In 1992 Chicago, as Michael Jordan solidifies himself as a champion, a story of two young legends in their own right begins. As wide-eyed and imaginative best friends Malik and Eric traverse the city, looking to escape the mundaneness of school and the hardships of growing up in public housing, their unbreakable bond is challenged when tragedy shakes their community just as they are learning to fly.

We Grown Now’s original score, composed by Jay Wadley and brought to life by the Grammy-winning Attacca Quartet, soars and swells alongside the emotional journey of two wide-eyed best friends navigating their life growing up in Chicago’s housing projects circa 1992. Wadley’s modern classical, chamber music approach to the score reflects the tenderness, tragedy and complexity coursing through the film’s narrative, culminating in the powerful and dramatic string piece, “Someone Got Shot.”

The director, Minhal Baig, was drawn to Jay Wadley’s scoring work on I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Driveways. Wadley’s classical approach and inventiveness seemed like the right fit for the film, especially as Baig wanted the score to feel prominent and inextricable to the story. 

“It was so exciting to work with Minhal, who was so invested in the scoring process and encouraged me to delve into my modern composition training to explore more adventurous approaches that could make a bold and exciting statement in the film,” Wadley said. “One of my favorite moments in the score is when we explored musical Pointillistic Impressionism as an extension of our characters’ experience roaming the halls of the art museum and taking in the work of George Seurat.” 

– Jay Wadley

Wadley and Baig drew inspiration from many modern “concert music” styles, embracing an active and complex chamber music aesthetic that is as vibrant, complex and full of life as the spaces and characters that Baig brought to life in the film. “I wanted to ‘attack’ with the violin, unafraid to punctuate or go left when expected to go right,” Baig said.

We Grown Now is now playing exclusively in theaters.