Baba Yetu

"Baba Yetu" is Civilization 4's main theme, composed by Christopher Tin with lyrics from the Lord's Prayer in Swahili; on Feb 13, 2011 it won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s), the first piece of music written for a video game to win a Grammy.

"Baba Yetu" is the main theme of Civilization 4: Christopher Tin wrote it for the game's opening, setting the Lord's Prayer in Swahili for choir and orchestra, and on Feb 13, 2011 it won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) at the 53rd Grammy Awards, the first piece of music written for a video game to win a Grammy. The title means "Our Father", the prayer's opening words. Soren Johnson, the game's lead designer, asked Tin for it after the two had roomed together as students, and the Stanford a cappella group Talisman sang it in the game. It plays on the title screen of the original game, and it has since been performed in concert halls, schools and on television around the world. The game's making is on Development History.

Quick facts

Composer	Christopher Tin
Written for	Civilization 4 (2005), its title theme
Lyrics	The Lord's Prayer in Swahili (GRAMMY.com)
Sung in the game by	Talisman, a Stanford a cappella group (GameSpot, Feb 14, 2011)
Concert premiere	Video Games Live at the Hollywood Bowl, 2006
Album	Calling All Dawns (2009), sung in 12 languages
Grammy	Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s), 53rd Grammy Awards, Feb 13, 2011
Other awards	Two Game Audio Network Guild Awards, 2007
Live performances	"almost 1,000" by Mar 2011 (GameSpot)

Sources: GRAMMY.com: And The GRAMMY Went To... Christopher Tin; GameSpot: Civilization IV song wins Grammy Award, Feb 14, 2011.

How Soren Johnson asked for it

"Baba Yetu" began with a placeholder. Johnson writes that while looking for intro music for the Civ 4 prototype he picked "The Rainmaker", a Talisman recording from the album After Silence, which Tin had produced; the piece is a Hans Zimmer vocal epic from the film The Power of One, and Johnson edited its climax to "emerge as soon as the sun crested over the Earth" on the intro screen. "Everyone on the team knew immediately that we needed a piece just like it" (Soren Johnson, Oct 16, 2008).

The original could not be used, so Tin wrote a new piece. Tin told Johnson that getting Zimmer's approval would be very difficult, "as he doesn't generally license his music to video games involving war", and the next step "was obvious": have Tin write a piece for Talisman inspired by "The Rainmaker". "Chris decided on his own to use The Lord's Prayer in Swahili and to add an orchestral accompaniment," Johnson writes; his "only contribution was encouraging Chris to put in a bridge". The two had met again at their Stanford class's five-year reunion, and had been "roommates at Oxford my junior year" (Soren Johnson). GameSpot calls Johnson "Tin's Stanford roommate" (GameSpot, Feb 14, 2011). More on Johnson is on Soren Johnson.

What the words mean

The lyrics are the Lord's Prayer in Swahili. GRAMMY.com puts it plainly: "Originally written for the video game 'Civilization IV,' the track's lyrics are a Swahili version of the Lord's Prayer" (GRAMMY.com). "Baba yetu" itself means "Our Father", the prayer's first words, and the song sets the rest of the prayer in Swahili. Kotaku answered the question many players had in 2014, in an article on a cover by Peter Hollens and Malukah, who had help with the pronunciation from Tin himself.

In the game

"Baba Yetu" is the title-screen music of the original Civilization 4. GameSpot's review of Oct 26, 2005 described "a distinctive title-screen track that recalls the music of Disney's The Lion King". Johnson writes that on release the song "was a stand-out moment for the product, receiving positive mentions in many reviews" (Soren Johnson).

Concerts and covers

The song's first concert performance was at the Hollywood Bowl. GameSpot reports that it "was first performed by the Stanford Talisman a cappella group" and had its world premiere "in 2006 at the Video Games Live concert at the Hollywood Bowl", and that it "went on to win two Game Audio Network Guild Awards in 2007" (GameSpot, Feb 14, 2011). Johnson credits Video Games Live, which made it "a standard part of their repertoire", with spreading it (Soren Johnson).

Choirs took it up everywhere. By Oct 2008 Johnson was collecting school and university versions from the United States and Sweden, plus a piano version, an interpretive dance and a marching band's half-time show, and naming Värmlandskören's as his favorite (Soren Johnson, Oct 16, 2008). By Mar 2011 it had "been performed almost 1,000 times in live concerts" (GameSpot, Mar 28, 2011). In Jul 2018 the Angel City Chorale sang it on America's Got Talent (Kotaku, Jul 29, 2018).

Calling All Dawns and the Grammy

"Baba Yetu" is also on Tin's first album. Calling All Dawns is his 2009 song cycle of poems and prayers in 12 languages, "Featuring more than 200 instrumentalists and vocalists" in three movements, day, night and dawn (GRAMMY.com). GameSpot notes that the song "wasn't nominated until December of last year", Dec 2010, together with the album (GameSpot, Mar 28, 2011).

It won at the 53rd Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb 13, 2011, in the category Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s), and Calling All Dawns won Best Classical Crossover Album the same night. Tin wrote afterward: "I'm told that 'Baba Yetu' is now the first video game song ever to win a GRAMMY. That's big news for the game industry" (GRAMMY.com, Christopher Tin In The Winner's Circle). GameSpot called the win "the first-ever win and nomination for a piece of music composed for a video game" (GameSpot, Mar 28, 2011), and PC Gamer later counted Civ 4 itself as "the first game to win a Grammy" (PC Gamer, 2020). Tin's site now calls him "a two-time GRAMMY-winning composer" (Christopher Tin). The game's other honors are on Reception and Awards.

Christopher Tin

Tin studied at Stanford and Oxford before the Royal College of Music. GRAMMY.com notes that he studied "music composition, conducting and English literature" at Stanford University and the University of Oxford, attended the Royal College of Music in London on a Fulbright Scholarship, and interned for Hans Zimmer, the composer whose piece "Baba Yetu" replaced (GRAMMY.com). Before the Grammy he had written music for Apple's GarageBand, commercials and films. In 2020, for the song's 15th anniversary, he talked it over with Johnson in a video chat that Johnson lists on his site.

The game's other music

"Baba Yetu" is one piece among many. The manual's credits list the composers as Jeffery L. Briggs, Mark Cromer, Michael Curran and Christopher Tin, then John Adams and a run of classical and Renaissance composers including Allegri, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Mozart and Palestrina, with vocals by Talisman (Civilization IV manual, credits, p. 217). Johnson's afterword says Briggs and Cromer "worked together to create the hours of original music filling the game", and that the team was "especially proud of the diplomacy music" (manual, p. 184). GameSpot heard "several other nation-specific songs that loop endlessly during gameplay" (GameSpot), and IGN wrote that "A wealth of fantastic music highlights the entire experience" (IGN, Oct 21, 2005). Players can add their own: Firaxis said custom soundtracks only need music added to the custom folder (2K Games blog, Sep 20, 2005).

Frequently asked questions

What is the Civ 4 theme song? Civilization 4's theme is "Baba Yetu" by Christopher Tin, the Lord's Prayer sung in Swahili, which won a Grammy on Feb 13, 2011. It plays over the original game's title screen.

What does Baba Yetu mean? "Baba yetu" means "Our Father" in Swahili: the Civilization 4 theme's lyrics are the Lord's Prayer in Swahili, as GRAMMY.com notes. The song sets the whole prayer, not a new text.

Did Baba Yetu win a Grammy? Yes. Christopher Tin's "Baba Yetu", written for Civilization 4, won Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) at the 53rd Grammy Awards on Feb 13, 2011, the first piece of music written for a video game to win a Grammy.

Who wrote Baba Yetu? Christopher Tin composed "Baba Yetu" for Civilization 4 at the request of the game's lead designer, Soren Johnson, a friend from their student days; Tin chose the Swahili Lord's Prayer himself, Johnson writes.

Who sings Baba Yetu in Civ 4? In Civilization 4, "Baba Yetu" is sung by Talisman, a Stanford a cappella group (GameSpot); the manual's credits list "Vocals: Talisman". Tin later re-recorded it for his 2009 album Calling All Dawns.

Where was Baba Yetu first performed live? Civilization 4's "Baba Yetu" had its concert premiere in 2006 at Video Games Live at the Hollywood Bowl, GameSpot reports, and it had been performed almost 1,000 times by Mar 2011.