Childish Gambino dropped “Awaken, My Love!” less than a week ago and he’s already begun pulling back the veil on the making of the album. He recently spoke to an Australian radio station and explained that his singing on Awaken was essentially untouched.

“Actually, there wasn’t a ton of vocal stuff done,” says Gambino. “I think people hear ‘Redbone’ and like, ‘Oh, he pitched up his vocals.’ And there was no vocal pitching on the album. I just sang differently.”

When asked about the track “California,” he says, “I just switched it up, trying to make people feel differently about the thing. We’re using vocoders. Some sounds on it aren’t instruments at all. They’re just my voice or clicks on my tongue.”

Gambino also stressed that making this album wasn’t exactly effortless.

“We’ve been playing together for a long time,” says Gambino. “We’re all very close. And it’s funny, I think people hear the album and to be completely honest, it wasn’t a lot of fun. It was actually really hard. [Laughs] I was going through a lot, and I also think in America we’re going through a lot right now, with everything that’s going on. I was trying to just play what I felt. But I was doing it with friends, so I think at the end of the day, that’s what matters.”

You can read all of the lyrics to “Awaken, My Love!” on Genius now.