Quotes from Ludwig Goransson

So when I'm listening to music, I'm listening to a lot of hip-hop to be inspired and to hear new things.

My starting point is always to read a script and have a conversation with the director about what their vision is, and then, after that, I love to do research.

It was very challenging, trying to add an orchestra on top of these traditional African rhythms, because as soon as you add any kind of melody or chords over it, it stops feeling African.

If you're a film composer, you have the music tell the story of the character.

Music in Africa is perceived so differently than Western classical music - it's language and storytelling.

I'd love to work with Frank Ocean. I really like his music.

At USC, when I studied film scoring my first year, one of my first friends that I met was Ryan Coogler. He was in the directing program at USC. He became one of my best friends at school.

In western classical music with an orchestra, you focus the orchestra on melodies and harmony. In African music, the biggest focus is on rhythms and counter-rhythms - the complexity of rhythms.

Normally when you write for an orchestra, you think about melody and harmony and countermelody.

One of the instruments that really stuck out to me was the talking drum, which is basically the first type of communication device. It's a drum you put on your shoulder, and you can pitch it with your arm, and you can 'talk' with it.

I was drawn to West Africa. I did listen to a bunch of different styles of African music, and there was something about the percussion and the drums of West Africa, and the energy, that felt so cinematic to me.

I've worked with Childish Gambino for so long, so I've learned that from those producing skills - how to really produce music - where, of course, it's about writing, but it's also about combining sounds and styles and genres.

I think with everything I do, I'm trying to just come up with new ways of creating music and mixing styles together. That's just what's fun for me to do, to try to make myself inspired.

Any time I get a chance to work with artists that make me inspired and learn new stuff about music - every chance I get, I'll take.

The through line of the way I like to work, what makes me different, and what I like to do for every project - although they are completely different from each other - is I like to do a lot of research and create a unique landscape and unique soundscape for each movie.