Childish Gambino Loved Questlove's Reaction to 'Awaken, My Love!'

Childish Gambino has been fairly quiet since the release of his surprising new album Awaken, My Love!, but he gave his first post-album interview to Australia's Triple J radio. One of the first topics they tackled was Questlove's enthusiastic reaction the album. "Him being like 'It's a sucker punch.' I like sucker punches. I like things that you're not expecting. You know the feeling of expecting water and getting lemonade," he said.

Although many have celebrated the fun, carefree vibe of the project, that wasn't quite the mood when he was recording it. "It wasn't a lot of fun. It was really hard. I was going through a lot," Gambino said. Interestingly, he also noted that he didn't pitch up any of the vocals on the album, despite some speculation that he had.

According to Gambino, the "virtual reality vinyl" that he's currently selling on his website is meant to bring the Pharos concert experience to people who couldn't be there for the event. Although he doesn't elaborate too much on the point, it sounds like this will include actual concert footage from the show—not unlike the footage he recently included on his Pharos app.

"We have excellent chemistry. Like anywhere I want to go, he's not afraid to go there," he said of his longtime collaborator Ludwig Göransson, whom he worked closely with on the album. "The guitar playing on this album is really great, and he like stepped up," he said, noting that this was the first time he had created an album with the band he tours with.

You can listen to the whole Childish Gambino interview below via SoundCloud.