Some of the best music recommendations come from college students. There’s a magic to young adults aged 18 to 22 coming together from different corners of the world, bringing their diverse tastes to a campus. Oftentimes, this group creates the perfect mixtape of good listening and often crowns the music industry’s next giants. If you listen to the soundtrack for the Netflix revival of “A Different World,” it seems true for Hillman College’s fictional students.
While he’s beyond his college years, music supervisor Derryck “Big Tank” Thornton spent time researching the perfect playlist to capture the reimagining of the late-80s to early ‘90s sitcom, which follows the lives, romance, and happenings of students on a fictional HBCU campus comparable to Spelman, Morehouse, and Clark Atlanta. Unlike the original series’ legendary celebrity appearances from the likes of Heavy D and Gladys Knight, the new iteration’s scenes are scored with music by Summer Walker, kwn, and Bossman Dlow, artists that today’s college students are likely to listen to on streaming platforms.
“I really wanted every song and every scene to hit,” Thornton tells VIBE. “No fluff, no nothing. So that’s what I went after and tried to do.” The show’s maestro began his career as a DJ and later produced Missy Elliott’s 2001 hit, “One Minute Man,” before becoming an expert in picking tracks for television shows and movies. His resume includes the perfect on-screen needle drops for series Green Leaf, The Chi, Power, and now, A Different World.
From his home studio, which looks more like outer space with shining platinum plaques instead of stars, Thornton talks about the music for the 2026 reboot of A Different World, working alongside showrunner Felicia Pride and how Brandy was “a monster” (complimentary) in the studio when recreating the show’s iconic theme song.
This interview has been shortened and edited for clarity.
VIBE: The original A Different World didn’t air with music speckling the scenes. What direction did you work off when adding songs to the show’s modern-day script?
Big Tank: Felicia [Pride] really wanted to give it a new spin. From the theme song on down, we just wanted to give it a different look and modernize it. I think that we wanted to do something for 2026 [and] make it feel like what an HBCU is going to sound like today.
[We] grabbed songs that were sampled from back then, and so if you listen to a lot of the songs in the beginning of the series, we’re taking songs that were sampled. Like the Trap Dickey record, [“Down South” featuring Key Glock], is [a sample of] “Rump Shaker” [by Wreckx-n-Effect]. You know the French Montana [and Max B] record, [“Ever Since You Left Me”], samples [“That’s the Way (I Like It)” by KC and the Sunshine Band]. It was very intentional.
I noticed you really embraced the new class of emerging R&B artists. I heard Sasha Keable, KWN, and Baby Rose throughout the series. Why did you champion those artists?
Well, I’m an A&R. So the first thing I’m gonna do is find out who’s hot, who’s playing on Black college radio. There’s an artist named TheARTI$T. She’s actually on tour with Kehlani right now. She has a song called “Ghost” that’s doing really well right now. I used two of her records [in the series]. I knew I wanted to find artists that were really starting to break through and give them some shine. Baby Rose and Leon Thomas have always just come through, and it’s just real R&B. It’s real dope. It’s a fresh look. It’s the new class.
Do labels pitch you songs for the show? Is it pure discovery, or a mix of both?
I mean, they pitch. I don’t listen because I don’t think their A&Rs are better than me. And I mean that. The music industry’s changed so much. So, you know, they don’t care about the show. They just care about their song being on the show.
A lot of the songs on the soundtrack are newer. How close to airtime are you looking at these scenes in post-production, and how do you figure out the best song to use?
A lot of times what I’m doing is I’m giving [Felicia] records because I see them coming up. As I see records climbing the charts, I’m like, all right, in a month or two, that’s gonna be a bigger record. I’m looking to get the song that maybe they don’t know. That song can maybe launch that person’s career. Anybody can license a Michael Jackson song somewhere. To me, there’s no art in that. The art is finding the next thing, putting that in there, and letting the world hear it and go, “Fuck, that’s crazy!”
You’ve made your show timeless because it doesn’t sound outdated, but you’ve also launched a career, and now that person can have longevity in what they’re doing with their art.
A standout music moment from the show was when the students are under lockdown from a bomb threat, and for comfort they have a sing-along to Tevin Campbell’s “Can We Talk.” Did you have a hand in that?
The thing about the old school records [is that] they make you feel a certain way. I’m older than [the cast], so for me, that may have been Aretha. For them, Tevin is old school. We wanted to give them something that felt like a hug when they were scared. “Can We Talk” feels like that. And the cast can all sing. It was a chance for them to show their creativity, bring everybody together, and show some unity. That song just fit best.
Another artist you brought in was Brandy, who sang a new rendition of the original theme song. Tell me how that came together.
You know, Anita Baker to me would have been amazing. However, [the younger audience] don’t know who that person is on the same level as they know Brandy. Brandy’s an icon. She can really sing. She’s super talented. Most of them grew up to Brandy. She’s a monster. Me and Felicia had a great time in the studio with her, and she gave us all the runs and everything that we needed. She was just so humble and great to work with.
I wanted to ask you more about the Summer Walker moment. Why was she the perfect music guest star for the series?
To me, Summer is HBCU. She doesn’t claim to be perfect. She’s a human. She’s got this amazing voice that’s got so much pain in it that you want to hear her sing. She’s in that age demo where they’re gonna understand her. To me, she’s perfect.
I’m from the South, and I noticed there was a lot of Southern music in the series. What were your choices when selecting the rap tracks for the series?
We’re filming this at HBCUs, so there’s definitely going to be a Southern influence. If you listen closely, though, we put a little bit of West Coast for Rashida. We went to London a couple of times for Kojo. We’re trying to encompass everything, but the body of the show is the South. But we also want to give the students their own nuggets as well. Amir’s gonna have more East Coast stuff in his room.
Now that the show has been renewed for Season 2, is there anything you didn’t get the chance to do this season that you want to try in the next?
I felt like [the show creators] allowed me a lot of freedom. If you noticed, I had the orchestra playing hip-hop records like “Blow the Whistle.” [In] one episode, we had the band playing “I Got Five On It.” I want to experiment and take [the live instrumentation] further. We used a Summer Walker record in a really interesting way on this show. We kind of wove it in between two scenes. It’s the first time in all the shows I’ve ever done that we’ve done that. I loved how it glued these scenes together. In this [next] season, I definitely got a couple of surprises that I don’t want to tell y’all about yet.
I’ll take that as an answer, I guess. Even though you’re holding back, it’s all right.
Just a little bit. You got to. I can’t give it all to you.