On "Atlanta", the music always showed us where we were

If music is a tool that helps viewers gain a better emotional understanding of what they're watching, then 'Atlanta' has used songs from its soundtrack like a tricked-out Leatherman with 19 distinct uses (including three types different of bobbin opener). Music playing such a big part shouldn't be surprising for a series whose protagonist, Earn Marks (Donald Glover), manages the burgeoning rap career of his cousin, Alfred "Paper Boi" Miles (Brian Tyree Henry). But this music had a versatility suited to match "Atlanta," a show where a harrowing journey into a showbiz house of horrors and a genuinely touching homage to an animated classic were equally at home.

The needle drops on "Atlanta" often do more than one thing at a time: inform the show's specific sense of location, reveal how the characters are feeling in a way that adds to the actors' expressions, give the audience a poetic sense of what a moment means, and/or move the action forward. For music supervisors Jen Malone and Fam Udeorji, the process never changed over the four seasons, and it always started with the likes of creator/star Glover and his brother, writer/producer Stephen. "They'll listen to everything," Udeorji told IndieWire.

From the outset, there was also a desire to acknowledge the setting of the show, while being careful not to limit or over-define Atlanta's musical sensibility. "You open the show with a very specific OJ da Juiceman song, 'No Hook', and you also want to be able to recognize the fact that you have these characters that exist in this world that's pretty much built around music, but never be limited to it,” Udeorji said.

Malone added that the music supervision team was encouraged to come up with a variety of options that could highlight a moment in different ways and could showcase different sides of "Atlanta." "[The music] really reflects humanity and just the general musical taste of different characters and different people," Malone told IndieWire. "Our writers are absolutely brilliant and really encourage us to find something in this world. And it's very vague and sometimes it can be a challenge, but sometimes it can be really fun for Fam and myself, to dig and find ideas that are truly left of center."

"There are times when [director Hiro Murai] hits me and says, 'Do you think Paper Boi would listen to this if he was in his safe house?'" added Udeorji, who started on "Atlanta" as a music and voice consultant providing helpful context from the writers room. "I just look at these characters through the lens of who I think is speaking through them, like Swank or Jamal Olori, who is in the room sometimes. He has very specific tastes in Atlanta music, but there's also a lot of soul music, and then you have Stephen and [Stefani Robinson] and people who would listen to Stereolab, you know?"

This approach helped the show find the right tracks to evoke a specific place, mood and character emotion, but also how the music reflects the community - how it's something shared, between friends and across generations. Udeorji pointed to an early moment from Season 1, in which Al and Darius (LaKeith Stanfield) sing Cheryl Lynn's 1983 single "Encore" while waiting to make a drug deal. "It's not the record you might think they would be singing on at this exact moment, and it's kind of scripted because it's a nod to maybe a family member, like an aunt they might have known who played that song a ton.”

Thinking through the music alongside the writers (and with them in mind) also helped "Atlanta" take a varied and formally conscious approach to its needles. "In Season 2, one of my favorite moments wasn't even about us choosing music," Udeorji said. “It was Thundercat and Flying Lotus. They scored the barbershop episode. And I think it's kind of like, you kind of have to take a tailored approach to each moment or each episode depending on what the story is because you see how the show can be sometimes not linear, which I think is the best part about it.”