If I told you that the producer behind Big Sean’s ’s “I Don’t Fuck with You,” Drake’s “Worst Behavior,” and a Schoolboy Q song called “Sexting” was also a key contributor to the latest Vampire Weekend album, you might not believe me. DJ Dahi seems to like it that way, though. His production catalogue boasts a range that’s consistently good and predictably unpredictable. Over the course of the last decade, the 37-year-old has become one of the more coveted collaborators in American pop music, sought after less for a signature sound than his inventive sonic textures and chameleonic adaptability. He is, after all, the man who flipped a warped Beach House sample into Kendrick Lamar’s platinum-selling good kid, m.A.A.d. City standout “Money Trees.” You come to DJ Dahi to be surprised and for grooves as head-scratching as they are irresistible.

View more

The producer’s latest feat is 3.15.20, Donald Glover’s recent follow-up to 2016’s “Awaken, My Love!” and the fourth studio album released under his pseudonym, Childish Gambino. The project itself arrived as a bit of a surprise. It appeared abruptly and without much explanation in the middle of March, on a website with the domain name donaldgloverpresents.com. For about 24 hours, in the midst of a worsening international pandemic, visitors to the site could tune into 57 minutes of stadium pop, slinking Prince-indebted R&B, and bits of psychedelic neo-soul being streamed on loop.

If, thematically, not his most fully-realized, 3.15.20—which arrived on streaming services a week later—is Glover’s most sonically polished and dynamic project to date. Chalk that up to DJ Dahi, who contributed production to nine of the album’s 12 tracks, including the monumental “Time.” It’s a song whose years-long development, much like its producer’s career, is testament to the fruit that can come from seeing possibility in change, in trying something new.

Earlier this week, GQ spoke to DJ Dahi about what it was like collaborating with Donald Glover, his own musical influences, and why he’s trying to make listeners a burger they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.

Jonathan Leibson / Getty Images

GQ: In his music, Donald often seems concerned with the existential, the specter of the internet, and how all of society’s pieces fit together. Was that something you two were discussing as you were working on this album?

DJ Dahi: We always have pretty in-depth conversations about life and the specific time we live in, and how it's important to be aware of the things we are in control of and the things we aren't. And how we're able to break out of that, or look forward to change and basically be ok with the fact that the world is going to change. As human beings, we have to be aware that we're a part of something and we're not the end all be all. There's a lot of things that come into why we are and who we are, but never forget that we're a part of a bigger system. I think it's important for us to realize that we have to do these things together.

How does Donald work in the studio? What type of language did he use to communicate his musical ideas to you?

A lot it was just us listening to music, listening to songs we love. Just like, "Yo, this is a really dope influence!" or "That's a dope song!" A lot of it was from that point of: let's see if we can give people this feeling of the things we enjoyed growing up, that we have an attachment to, and not try to make it "current," but re-introduce this music into the space where the world is at now.

What type of things were you listening to?

We were listening to George Clinton, Hiatus Kaiyote, Funkadelic, Prince, Hailu Mergia and Dahlak Band. At the time, I was listening to a lot of Cleo Sol. Listening to Salt, listening to Tame Impala, just a lot of things that I can point to that was like, “Yo, that's really, really dope texturally.”

All the songs were made from scratch. There weren’t any beats. It was just basically like, “Oh let's try this and just build off of it,” or taking parts of certain things and putting them together. And for me it's been a great experience to do that because I really started to do that more on this album than I ever had before.

It just starts from these super, super small spaces and then we just build on top of it and create something from there. It’s not like, “Oh, here's the beat, here's a beat, here's a beat.” It's more like, “Yo, what are we doing here?” You know what I'm saying? And then we just start from something that just sounds cool.

You have such a diverse production catalog. You've worked with artists like Kendrick Lamar, but also Madonna. How does the process working on this Gambino album differ from, say, hopping into a session with Vampire Weekend?

For me, it's all the same in the sense of I'm at a point now in my career where I usually make stuff in the studio with the artists. It's just a conversation and building it. I know what world they're in, what they're looking for or what they want to start with. And then basically from there, we just try to grow in that.

A lot of these projects that I've been a part of is basically from just having relationships with these people and having conversations about life first. You build on top of that. It's really coming from a more organic space, and not just “I'm trying to get a beat on your record.”

How does an artist who started out largely helming hip-hop production end up being courted by people like Madonna and Vampire Weekend?

Well I've always been a little bit left in my production, in the sense of my sound selection and the textures that I like to use. Because growing up, I didn't really listen to a lot of hip-hop. I was listening to rock or classical, or soul, reggae, R&B.

I read somewhere that you love The Verve.

I remember I recorded the “Bittersweet Symphony” music video to a VHS cassette, and I used to run the video literally a hundred times as a kid, just over and over and over.

So, my ear is just a little bit different in that sense. I don't know if it's necessarily a thing where I would even consider myself a hip-hop producer. I'm a music producer. I've always approached it that way.

Was there a song on the album that had the greatest transformation from when you first began working on it to the final version that was released?

“Time” was definitely started off totally different, totally different.

How so?

It was the first time I met Donald, which is about two and a half years ago. That was actually the first song we started together. The lyrics and the hook of the song stayed the same but the music changed. The music was a lot more dark, a lot more moody. We talk a lot about concepts of big and small and the concept of time—such a big concept. We didn't know if it was too big for the album. Do we want to go small, personal? And then we had some sessions where we have some other people come play on the record and that gave it a new energy.

No idea is really a bad idea. It's context and how we're perceiving it or how we're looking at it. And a lot of times you need to have a different perspective or different things that take what you're doing and add [to it] or shape [it] or look at it from another point of view.

How do you decide whether a song like that needs the outside voices to help it along versus when you feel you can bring an idea to completion on your own?

I think it had a lot to do with being humble and a sense of being able to know I took the song as far as I could. The era I came through as a producer was like... you didn't really collaborate as much. You just would make stuff yourself.

So for me, especially when I started really working with musicians, it really just opened my eyes up to just the process of how these songs are made. I know my limitations. I know someone who can play it way better than me or I know someone who's the best at this instrument or I know someone who's really great at drums and he's just killing it at this particular sound.

Can you walk me through how “Time” came together?

Well, Ludwig [Göransson] and I started that together. And then over time we just had my boy Chukwudi [Hodge] come in and he's a really dope producer but his drums are incredible. He came with some different, dope sounds. And then, Ludwig hopped on the guitar and played the main melody. And then, my guy Ely [Rise] came in and he added the B-section with the chords. We just pieced everything together from just all different parts of the factory line.

So, and then we brought in Sarah Aarons [who wrote Zedd’s “The Middle”] to help write on the record and she's an amazing songwriter. And Arianna [Grande] came in and she did her part on the record as well. And it's just fun because again, I had no idea how that record would be in the end just because of where it started from. But I knew just the message of the record was really dope.

What made you guys want to bring in Ariana?

I think we just thought this is something maybe a little different from her world and wanted to put her in this space and see what it sounds like. In that way, it’s always good to just give people something that they don't expect to have.

Also, she’s just talented. She can sing—one of the best singers of our time.

Jai Paul was listed as contributing production to “Time.” Is that true?

Yeah, he actually was one of the mixers on the record. He really helped us get the mix of the records to sound the way it was. And it's because he had some very unique ways of looking at the song and he just loved it. So yeah, he contributed really just helping the sound of the record for sure.

We're both big fans of just his work, of what he does, his sound, his choices and things. He's definitely one of my inspirations in just the way he hears music and sounds and beats. And so yeah, I've always been a huge fan of his.

In the process of you guys working on 3.15.20, his “This Is America” moment happened. Donald would go on to win a Grammy for that song. Did the buzz around that, the pressures of that, ever permeate the work you were doing? Was there a feeling that he had to follow that up in some way?

No, not really at all. He made the choice of just “It's a moment.” As the album changed so much, the album went from this side of the room to the other side of the room and back. So, I think in us changing certain aspects of the album, it just made sense to just let “This Is America” live in its own space.

It's hard—even if you try to— to “beat” something because there's so many things that have to be in line in the world that make you think, “maybe we got something.”

You’ve said that you and Donald work on some of the songs on the record for as long as two years. What do you think having that longer gestation period gave them that they might not have had if you’d spent less time on them?

Oh, I think when you have songs that are good, you can sit with for a while. It allows you to really understand if it's a [song] for the moment or a song that can be timeless. I've realized that more when I make music and how much the space I'm in at the moment affects how good it sounds. Then if I go outside for a walk and come back at nighttime and hear it again, it may not sound as good. So a lot of times when I make things now, I just sit on it for a while and not even send it out.

In general, I don't think a lot of people have the luxury to make music like that. Because a lot of people chase moments. And we live in a TikTok era where if it sounds cool for now and the kids love it, it'll work. You know what I'm saying? And it'll be great. It'll be dope. It may not last past a few months, but for that moment, it's good.

My specific goal a lot of times now is just to be able to know about the song a little bit more and see what it is, because our ears change so much in the times. And you wonder if it's hot food or just like quick McDonald's or if it's a burger that you remember for the rest of your life.

This interview has been edited and condensed.