Songs in the Key of Life

Meirelles films Rio's favelas with the same generosity Wonder gives the inner city — anger and tenderness in the same frame, refusing to choose.

Coel writes Black London with Wonder's same insistence that the personal is the only real political register. Sex, work, faith, song — all in one continuous breath.

Ngũgĩ writes post-independence Kenya the way Wonder sings 1976 America: the public and the private braided into one ethical lyric.

Khaled's raï melts protest, prayer, and pop the way Wonder did — three voices in one throat, the personal carrying everything political through it.

Yuasa cares about every character with the same democratic gaze Wonder gives every track. The series is religious about people without ever saying so.