Goransson, who was born and raised in Sweden and moved to Los Angeles in 2007, admits he wasn’t the most versed in funk and psych-soul traditions before Glover introduced him to P-Funk and Sly and the Family Stone records. I think that opened up a lot of new doors for us.”
“But it was also taking a step away from computers and to have the whole recording process filled with more air and live performances. “The whole album started out with me, Donald and a couple musicians just being in the studio together for a week and basically just experimenting, Donald just kind of being open to anything,” Goransson says. Hot Off 'Atlanta,' Donald Glover Prepares for 'Star Wars' & Childish Gambino's Funkadelic-Inspired…
Gambino’s “Have Some Love,” for instance, is a riff on Funkadelic’s “Can You Get to That” “Boogieman” seems to be the end result of tossing “Super Stupid” and “Hit It and Quit It” into a blender Awaken‘s second single, the excellent “ Redbone,” recalls Bootsy Collins‘ “I’d Rather Be With You.” The only sample on the album comes on “Riot,” which lifts the groove from Funkadelic’s “Good to Your Earhole.” The rest was created by Glover and Goransson with a small circle of band members, largely recorded at Glover’s rental home in the Hollywood Hills.
The song is an unmistakable nod to George Clinton‘s seminal psych-funk collective - particularly Funkadelic’s early 1969-1975 output, before Parliament‘s party-funk horns and swirling Moogs replaced gritty guitars as the main driver of the groove - and steers home an influence that pops up again and again all over the album. What Goransson sees as a natural evolution - one that started with Glover expanding beyond just rapping on 2013’s Because the Internet, and continued with more sung vocals on 2014’s Kauai - caught most people by surprise when “Me and Your Mama” was released as Awaken‘s first single in November. “There are small little ingredients and notes that are very well-thought-out, arrangement-wise, and there’s a lot of ear candy in there happening… I feel like it’s kind of the natural evolution of sound.”
“We actually built a drum room in Donald’s house just to get the exact drum sound we wanted it took a couple weeks to build,” says producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ludwig Goransson, who co-wrote and and co-produced the entirety of Awaken, My Love! and has worked with Glover for nearly a decade.