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.
Ludwig Goransson
I'd love to work with Frank Ocean. I really like his music.
So when I'm listening to music, I'm listening to a lot of hip-hop to be inspired and to hear new things.
I'd say for a film composer, 'Star Wars' is kind of like the holy grail of film music. It's probably the best film music ever written.
Any time you have the chance to celebrate something with your closest best friends, it's very special.
I think to try to make new music and new ideas, you have to push the boundaries of existing music.
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.
Music in Africa is perceived so differently than Western classical music - it's language and storytelling.
It definitely feels like I'm living a dream, but I try not to pinch myself because I don't want to wake up.
These days, you're always surrounded by music and sounds, whether you're in the mall or a subway car.
I would say that 'Creed' has a lot more music in it. It's 60 minutes of music, while 'Fruitvale' had about a fourth of that at best. There's a bigger focus in 'Creed' because I had to make music for training montages.
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.
Travelling is a key part of my life. It keeps me inspired, takes me to new places, introduces me to new sounds, and allows me to explore new environments and soundscapes.
One of the first things I want do when I start writing music for a film is to create its own sound world, its own music world.
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.
I was able to learn a new language - a new musical language is learning a new language, because it's so extremely different from Western classical music. African music is completely different.
I really want to get better at conducting.
I think in 'Rocky IV' there are three montages with three five-minute songs, which is insane. You can't do that today.
Needless to say, I like to create a unique sound for each project I do.
If you're a film composer, you have the music tell the story of the character.
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.
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.
I think, for me, a way to really come up with new ideas and come up with new ways of writing music is to create a unique sound palette or soundscape for all the films I'm working on.
I think I'm a pretty good listener.
No matter where you're born or what country you're from, you connect with 'This is America.' It speaks to people; it connects right to your soul. It calls out injustice, celebrates life, and reunites us all at the same time.
Needless to say, when I work on a film, it's mostly just me alone in my room just waiting to present the music to the director - and either he likes it or not.
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.
Every now and then, as a composer and producer, it's important to write music for yourself.
When I'm by myself - composing or writing film scores - it's very lonely. I'm just sitting by myself in the studio.
Growing up, I was listening to a lot of Metallica, a lot of instrumental guitar music because I started out as a guitar player.
If you make modern rap music, how do you write without ripping off anyone else? It's just about having a distinct voice in your songs.
I haven't really ever seen a big budget Hollywood film with African music. Most of the time, it's just Hollywood's perception of what African music is.
A friend of mine put me in contact with the artist Baaba Maal.
I'm always trying to experiment and come up with new palettes of sound and new combinations of music that you haven't really seen or heard in film before.
I'm just constantly figuring out new ways to reinvent myself.
For the last 10 years, I've been working with Donald Glover and Ryan Coogler, and we've put down so much time really trying to make the best that we can, whether it's a movie, a film score, or a song.
Normally when you write for an orchestra, you think about melody and harmony and countermelody.
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.
Words fail to express how surreal and humbling it feels to be invited into the 'Star Wars' universe.
When I'm working with an artist, my job is to make their vision come to life.
I work pretty fluidly across all genres.
The first time I experimented with sound design was on 'Fruitvale Station,' where I recorded the BART train and manipulated it.
Obviously, the 'Rocky' theme is one of the most recognizable themes in film.
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.
I think the more you know people and the more you get to know artists, the better you can collaborate.
So much music in Africa was created for specific moments, written for rituals or for a funeral or for challenges, thousands of years ago, and these rhythms are still used.
It's not lost on me that I'm a Swedish guy from one of the coldest countries in the world.
I traveled to a library in South Africa called ILAM (International Library of African Music), which has a collection of about 500 different instruments that don't really exist anymore.
I would love to do more superhero work; as a young film composer, that is one of the things you dream of.
I moved to L.A. in 2007 from Sweden.
