(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Welcome to the age of humans.

(upbeat music) - Oh my God, Adrian Younge.

I still can't believe he's actually writing the music for this show.

- I was filming with Shane for another show.

I'd also been listening to some of my favorite rap albums in the '90s, and I was thinking, "God, like, let's make this show rap driven."

I brought the idea up to Shane.

He was like, "I love it, it's fantastic."

And we were both geeking out at that time about Luke Cage.

And I saw that Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, hip hop legends were the ones who scored it.

- My name's Adrian Younge and I'm an artist.

(upbeat music) - Adrian Younge has done so many amazing things in his career.

He's worked with very well known artists like Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg.

He's scored big Hollywood films.

I honestly like, I still like, I can't believe that he's scoring our show.

- Music is the universal language.

People listen to music and there's an understanding.

When I heard about this cool science documentary that is kind of hip hop and cultural and everything, it just sounded like something that was too good to be true.

I've never really seen it done before.

When I saw a clip of what this show is supposed to be, I said, "There's no way in hell I can't be a part of this thing."

I love science shows so much.

Now, I was about to have the opportunity to be a part of a science show that was made for me and the homies.

(bright music) - Given who he's worked with, you know, like in the industry, he saw this and was captured enough by it that he wanted to write to score for it.

Like that makes me feel special.

It's like the cool kid decided to be friends with you.

- Music helped to galvanize our civil rights movement.

It's the message.

- Most science shows, like classic orchestra and we really try to change that.

Our show is about Shane and the way he sees the world.

The music looks like his soundtrack, walking through the world.

(upbeat music) - In scoring "Human Footprint," I wanted to create music that respected culture and at the same time I wanted to create music that felt cool and hip.

So we used music to exemplify the importance of ideas, point of view, respect, the intensity of situations, compassion for situations.

For centuries, our institutions were telling us that we are inferior.

Our music help to dispel this theory.

(gentle music) There's another scene when we're dealing with the concept of cotton, how that's changed the world.

If it wasn't for cotton, would I even be here right now in America?

- Adrian's not only the composer of the show but he was also a character in the Cotton episode.

We really wanted to explore the contributions of African Americans to like American and global culture and we did that through music.

- The records are like time capsules.

They're stories and they're exposed.

When you put the needle to the groove, you know what I'm saying?

- Mm-hmm.

You're doing more than collecting music.

It's like you're collecting history.

(gentle upbeat music) - Adrian's knowledge is insane about the history of music in the Americas.

He runs this super cool record shop in Pasadena that sells historic records.

When he's collecting these records, he's really not just collecting records, he's collecting pieces of history and sort of trying to put together this complicated picture of the influence of African Americans on American music and global music.

We interviewed him about that and like got to pick his brain about how massive the contribution of African Americans were to the music.

That is the soundtrack of all of our lives and that now is also the soundtrack of our show.

(bright music) - We had to have music that showed anguish.

We had to have music that showed power.

We had to have music that provided the narrative of resilience and posterity.

It doesn't have to be dark.

We use music to help tell the story the way we want the story to be told.

This show actually changed the way I saw my everyday life because "Human Footprint" makes you rethink your life in many ways.

- People haven't heard a soundtrack like this to a science show ever, and I hope they like it.

- It's really the dream.

It's that chapter in my book that I'm very proud of.

(gentle music) (graphics whirring)