One of the most crucial components to Donald Glover’s hit FX series, Atlanta, is its music.
In a new interview with Variety, music supervisor Jen Malone is revealing secrets about some of the music usages in Season 2 and getting them cleared.
On Stevie Wonder’s hesitance to use his music for the Teddy Perkins episode:
Variety writes, “Many artists, evidently including Wonder, aren’t particularly thrilled when their music is used over potentially disturbing content, so Glover had to help persuade Wonder to allow them to use the music.” Malone said, “Donald had to get on the phone with Stevie and we were all very intrigued about what went on on that phone call. But we ended up getting the song and it was just such a perfect musical moment.”
The music in the infamous alligator episode:
The song used was The Delfonics’ “Hey Love.” Malone says its her favorite music pick for the season. “An alligator named Coach walks in slo-mo to the Delfonics’ ‘Hey Love.’ Such a surreal moment scored by such a classic, iconic song that is just completely unexpected. And Donald actually wrote that song into the script, it was there from the very beginning and there was no topping it.”
The difficulty in clearing Tay-K’s “The Race”:
“The kid’s in jail. For murder, and he’s probably never getting out. But his song was, like, No. 40 on Billboard, so he does have management, and the management had to go jail, visit with him, and have him sign off on the request,” Malone said.
Atlanta is up for multiple Emmys, including Best Comedy Series and acting noms for Zazie Beetz, Donald Glover and Brian Tyree Henry.