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\n\tThis feature contains spoilers from the film<\/em> Is God Is.<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tRevenge is a dish best served with an earthy, corporeal soundtrack from award-winning multidisciplinary artist Moses Sumney \u2014 at least according to director-playwright Aleshea Harris and her thrilling new film, Is God Is.<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tAn impressive adaptation of Harris\u2019 own 2018 stage play, Is God Is<\/em> follows identical twins Racine the Rough One (Kara Young) and Anaia the Quiet One (Mallori Johnson) on their quest to exact total revenge on their violent, absentee father (Sterling K. Brown) by disfiguring them as children while burning their mother alive. Featuring additional standout performances by Vivica A. Fox, Erika Alexander and Janelle Mon\u00e1e, Is God Is<\/em> reframes the neo-Western genre through a Black Southern Gothic aesthetic that allows Harris to blend her commentary on domestic violence and the Black nuclear family with supernatural elements like twin telepathy. Distributed by Amazon MGM studios, Is God Is<\/em> stands as one of the first legitimate awards contenders of 2026. And Sumney\u2019s stirring score is a major reason why.<\/p>\n \n\tSumney joined Is God Is <\/em>after the studio reached out to him in the summer of 2024. Despite not \u201chaving any ambition to be a film composer,\u201d Harris\u2019 riveting, \u201cself-assured\u201d screenplay sold him. And, though he didn\u2019t quite know it at the time, his decision-making was guided by unmistakable \u201cfull-circle\u201d energy.<\/p>\n \n\tAs a first-time film composer, Sumney tapped co-composer Joseph Shirley, who assisted Oscar winner Ludwig G\u00f6ransson on Creed<\/em>, Ryan Coogler\u2019s Michael B. Jordan-starring boxing epic. Sumney played a small role in that film, also penning several songs for Tessa Thompson\u2019s character. Naturally, Thompson serves as a producer on Is God Is<\/em>. And that\u2019s not to mention Sumney casually meeting Harris at three-time Tony nominee Jeremy O. Harris\u2019 [no relation] house while Is God Is<\/em> thrilled the Soho Repertory Theatre.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI loved Anaia from day one. I always felt really connected to the quieter twin since I\u2019m the quieter sibling,\u201d he tells Billboard<\/em>. \u201cI could relate to that ugly duckling-ness she had, and I really loved the opportunity to think about what it could mean for the twins to share intuition. What would their telepathic connection sound like?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTo answer that question \u2014 while also rolling with the film\u2019s \u201cintimate\u201d production budget \u2014 Sumney turned to his own body. Even when his and Shirley\u2019s score, which pulls from blues, gospel, rock and folk music<\/a>, incorporates whirring synths and piercing keys, Sumney struck his own body, scratched up floors and stretched his own voice to its limits as a \u201cplayable instrument.\u201d It\u2019s an approach that extended to the eerie whistle Brown\u2019s character wields as a sonic motif throughout the film. That balance of unique human production and the steely, almost-barren feel of the film\u2019s New Orleans set gave way to a score that\u2019s as visceral as it is immersive.<\/p>\n \n\tIn an expansive conversation with Billboard<\/em>, Moses Sumney details the making of the Is God Is<\/em> score, explains how he recruited Kara Jackson for soundtrack single \u201cSins of the Father\u201d and teases his first new studio album since 2020.<\/p>\n \n\tHow familiar were you with the stage play?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI never had an opportunity to see the stage play, but I had heard of it \u2014 especially because I met Aleshea around the time of the production, really casually, at my friend Jeremy O. Harris\u2019 house. When they brought [Is God Is<\/em>] up, I thought it was a really brilliant and bold thing for a studio to be making. Especially when you look at all the boxes: first-time director, Black, female, original story, unique IP, etc. It seemed like a rare opportunity for this to even exist in the world.<\/p>\n \n\tGenerally, what was your creative process like?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI was working with a co-composer, a brilliant man named Joseph Shirley, whom I\u2019ve actually known for a long time. I knew I needed someone who had scored proper movies before, since I\u2019ve only ever scored short films. He had the brilliant idea of creating a sonic world for the film before it even went into edit. I came on before they shot the film and went to set to get a sense of what was happening.<\/p>\n \n\tBecause the world of the film is so tactile and the relationship between the twins is so deeply personal, it made sense for the music to be personal. Also, the budget was very intimate. We wanted to use my physical body as much as possible, so a lot of the sounds are my voice, even when there are synths and keys. We did all that before we even saw any dailies. Once they went into edit, we got an early cut of the whole film and started going scene by scene.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s almost SOPHIE-esque, the way you stretch your voice to its absolute limit as an instrument. Why did the human voice and body feel like the right sound to ground this score?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tOh, I appreciate that \u2014 I love SOPHIE! It just made sense, but maybe it\u2019s also my style. So much of my work is vocal looping, vocal layering, stacking harmonies and [background vocals], and I\u2019ve been experimenting more and more with turning my voice into an actual playable instrument. I\u2019ve also been making an album concurrently, and that has been a lot of the theme.<\/p>\n \n\tWe definitely wanted to make something that harkened to the American South and blues, but we did so in a way that felt unique instead of bringing in banjos and upright bass and going full Delta backwater vibes. We wanted the music to feel progressive, even though it\u2019s a Western, and there are all these American and Americana tropes happening throughout.<\/p>\n \n\tThis movie is essentially a neo-Western that blends supernatural elements with an overarching Black Southern Gothic aesthetic. How did those different energies manifest in your score?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWe tried to find space for everything. We had moments with really compositional strings, but we also found space to make you feel like you\u2019re in rural Louisiana. And looking at their girls and their taste, there\u2019s a point where Racine is head-banging in the car to a Death Grips song [\u201cGuillotine\u201d], which is so good<\/em>. They\u2019re cool girls, don\u2019t get it twisted! So, that influenced a lot, and that was Aleshea\u2019s choice from the beginning.<\/p>\n \n\tShe also got the Prince estate to clear one of his songs [\u201cThunder\u201d] while Janelle Mon\u00e1e\u2019s character is driving. The artists peppered throughout the soundtrack informed where we were going musically.<\/p>\n \n\tThe whistle Brown\u2019s character does is so chilling. How did you guys nail that?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWell, there was a cartoon that Aleshea really loved. I\u2019m not actually sure of its origin, but you see it in an early scene when the girls are getting ready. In the flashback scene, when the man burns down the house, the cartoon is also playing in the background. [Sings.<\/em>] \u201cSunshine, sunshine, sunshine.\u201d We pulled the melody from that and had Sterling [K. Brown] whistle it, which made it feel much more ominous.<\/p>\n \n\tTalk to me about bringing the score into a more industrial space for that horror-coded showdown between the twins and Divine\u2019s son?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tOne of the first songs that I wrote for the film was called \u201cBang! Bang! Bang!\u201d I really wanted to go for something angry and industrial and maybe a tiny bit Radiohead-y, and we put that in that scene, which starts with him destroying their car. Then they go into a junkyard, so the literal metal of the environment in the scene really informed the score. In that song, I\u2019m banging and scratching the floor and hitting my body; it\u2019s a mix of humanness and rawness.<\/p>\n \n\tTalk to me a little bit more about your dynamic with Joseph Shirley.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tJoseph was there to be the adult in the room. [Laughs.<\/em>] We probably took turns doing that, but it was imperative to have him because I\u2019m not going to pretend I know what it\u2019s like to receive edit after edit of a thing and then turn it around on a dime. That\u2019s the world he lives and breathes. I got to oscillate between being more of a dreamer and overseer, while also providing raw materials for what this should sound like. And Joseph is also a really brilliant musician from Louisiana, who brought a certain musicality and knowledge of how to operate within that system while maintaining incredible humility. We\u2019re very different, and I think that worked in our favor.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat particular track or scene demanded the most from you in this process?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThere are two scenes. I really wanted to get the opening montage right because we were setting the table for what the sonic world of the film is. But the one we kept going back to was the last scene in the movie when Racine goes off into the world alone. We knew early on that we wanted it to be a song, not just a score \u2014 and that was also a big part of my job, making as many song moments out of the score as possible.<\/p>\n \n\tIt also had to be somber because she\u2019s just lost her sister, and we\u2019re coming off this really high-octane, dramatic moment with the fight with the dad. But then it has to immediately get hopeful because although she\u2019s lost so much, she\u2019s looking forward and she\u2019s with child. There is a life still available to her. I would actually say Anaia\u2019s life begins when the movie ends because she\u2019s finally getting a chance to be an individual. So, we kept going back to that scene to see if it should be sadder or warmer or bluesier. Eventually, I wrote \u201cDon\u2019t Leave Me Be,\u201d which had the perfect tone of warmth and hope and sadness.<\/p>\n \n\tHow did \u201cSins of the Father\u201d come together?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWe had to make space for Kara Jackson, who is such a brilliant folk artist and our former U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate. We could not let the soundtrack go down without having a Black female voice present. \u201cSins of the Father\u201d was initially written for the scene after the fire near the end of the movie. It\u2019s in the end credits and just fits better there.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter everything was done, I reached out to Kara, whom I\u2019ve been a fan of since her debut album [2023\u2019s Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?<\/em>], and we had a really long lunch where I asked her to write a verse for the song. I told her the plot of the movie and got her to do a bit of a duet. I\u2019m so happy that we were able to lead with that song.<\/p>\n \n\tDid you bring anything from your past acting experiences (The Idol, Maxxxine<\/em>) to scoring Is God Is<\/em>? When can we see you on screen again?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIf anything, I\u2019m really interested in making my own movies. Before I started acting, I was directing my music videos. Then, I started photographing, so I would be a better director. I started acting soon after that, and I even did Shakespeare in the Park [Public Theater\u2019s Twelfth Night<\/em>] last year. In a way, everything has been leading up to me writing and maybe even directing my own films. The ways I want to tell stories are so much richer than only making music or albums.<\/p>\n \n\tI was excited to go into this project and learn how the sausage is made. Even though I\u2019m in my little department, getting to communicate across the board and see the process of a film from script to shooting to editing to post to [release] was really cool.<\/p>\n \n\tI don\u2019t know how much my acting might have influenced my scoring, but my scoring will definitely influence my acting and filmmaking. I went to school for writing, so I\u2019m always thinking of how to say the most with the least. And that\u2019s really important in scoring, because I personally don\u2019t like watching movies that are wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling sound, which is something Aleshea and I agreed on. You have to sit in the silence sometimes.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat recent film scores have resonated with you?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s so obvious, but Sinners <\/em>is great. I didn\u2019t see it until awards season, and I\u2019m actually quite glad because there are obvious parallels between Sinners <\/em>and Is God Is,<\/em> so it was good that I didn\u2019t have that in my brain. But I thought that was really brilliant, and everything Ludwig does is great. I really liked Halina Reijn\u2019s Babygirl;<\/em> I thought [Cristobal Tapia de Veer\u2019s] score was really good and criminally underdiscussed. Same for the Bones and All<\/em> score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The Drama,<\/em> as well; the soundtrack was just so good<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat can you tell us about your new album?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tHopefully, music from that will start coming out this year, maybe even in the summer. I\u2019m really, really excited about it. I took a long break to figure out who I am, and I\u2019m so grateful for the perspective that has given me and the kind of life experience it\u2019s given me to pull from. This album is definitely going to be the most ambitious work I\u2019ve ever made, but also the most honest work I\u2019ve ever made, which is saying a lot. That will be the next musical offering for me, for sure.<\/p>\n