Forty-Year-Old Version’s Soundtrack Is Full Of Songs Worthy Of RadhaMUSprime

For The Forty-Year-Old Version, Radha Blank did everything. Blank directed, produced, wrote, stars in, and performs music for the film, now on Netflix. Based in part on her own life, The Forty-Year-Old Version is about a woman, also named Radha Blank, who was set to be the next big thing in playwriting, but ended up reluctantly teaching a high school drama program. So, in anticipation of her fortieth birthday she decides to try out something new: a rap career.

This means that The Forty-Year-Old Version is full of music — some from the character Radha, whose stage name is RadhaMUSprime, and some as the soundtrack, which includes primarily hip hop and jazz.

"RadhaMUSprime as an alter ego really did save me," the real Blank told The Guardian. "What I love about hip-hop music is if you have a skill with a pen it really doesn’t matter what you look like. I used RadhaMUSprime to celebrate having a May to December romance, and I have a fat girl sex anthem. In my normal life I’m always dieting, whereas RadhaMUSprime doesn’t care. She celebrates her rolls!"

And as Blank explained in an interview with the Sundance Institute, "I’ve always rhymed since I was a kid. And because I’m a funny person, it was always through the lens of comedy." So, it's no surprise that her songs in the film have to do with things like being mailed AARP membership notices, spotting a "white man with a Black woman's butt," and being asked to write "poverty porn" by white theater producers.

Read on to find out more about the songs in the movie, from hip hop classics to new jazz to Blank's own music.