Ludwig Göransson

Ludwig Emil Tomas Göransson (born 1 September 1984) is a Swedish composer, conductor, songwriter, and record producer.

As a record producer, he has frequently collaborated with Childish Gambino, producing his studio albums Camp, Because the Internet and "Awaken, My Love!", among others.

In 2007, he moved to Los Angeles to study at the University of Southern California Scoring for Motion Picture and Television program.

Göransson's first break came in 2009 as the composer for the sitcom Community.

Göransson composed the score to Coogler's critically acclaimed drama Fruitvale Station, based on the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant on 1 January 2009.

It was at that university that Ludwig met Ryan Coogler, for whom Ludwig composed the score for the award-winning short film Fig in 2011 (written by Alex George Pickering), which Coogler directed while at USC.

The pair would then work together on Fruitvale Station, Creed and Black Panther.

Soon after graduating USC he began work assisting Theodore Shapiro, a composer known for films such as Along Came Polly, The Devil Wears Prada, Idiocracy, and Tropic Thunder.

In 2013, Göransson's first feature film came from fellow USC graduate Ryan Coogler.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience awards in the Dramatic category at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, also taking home the Avenir Prize and Un Certain Regard awards at the Cannes Film Festival.

In August 2013, Göransson signed a management deal as a composer for Jay-Z's label, Roc Nation.

That year he also composed the music for the movie We're the Millers.

In 2015, Coogler and Göransson again worked together this time on the critically acclaimed Rocky franchise film Creed.

By 2016–17, he was scoring True Memoirs of an International Assassin, Central Intelligence and Everything, Everything.

Göransson's producing work on Gambino's 2018 single "This Is America" was met with acclaim and accolades, including two Grammy Awards — for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

He has also produced for other recording artists, such as Adele, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Chance the Rapper, Haim, Justin Timberlake, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott and Moses Sumney.

Göransson is also known for his work on American TV series like Community, New Girl and The Mandalorian, which earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for both season 1 and season 2's finales.

He composed the main theme for The Mandalorian's spinoff series, The Book of Boba Fett, which debuted in 2021.

He has scored for the films Fruitvale Station, the Rocky franchise, Creed and Creed II, Venom, Tenet and Turning Red. He also composed the 2021–23 fanfare for Warner Bros. Pictures and the new and current fanfare for the Star Wars brand logo.

For his work on the 2018 superhero film Black Panther, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.

He further scored the second Black Panther film, 2022's Wakanda Forever, achieving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Lift Me Up" performed by Rihanna.

His work on Christopher Nolan's epic drama Oppenheimer (2023) earned his first wins at the BAFTA Awards and Golden Globe Awards and a second win at the Academy Awards (2024).

Göransson was born and raised in Linköping.

His mother Maria, a florist, is from Warsaw, Poland, and his father Tomas, a guitar teacher, is Swedish.

He has an older sister named Jessika.

He is named after Ludwig van Beethoven.

He began music lessons at a young age and went on to graduate from the Stockholm Royal College of Music.

In 2018, Göransson and Coogler came together for their third collaboration, Black Panther.

Göransson set out to create a score that would sit somewhere between traditional African instrumentation and a traditional superhero score.

In order to do this he travelled to Senegal to research traditional African music and instruments.

There he met musician Baaba Maal whose voice is featured in the score, singing in his native Fula language.

He later traveled to the International Library of African Music in South Africa, founded by Hugh Tracey, where he listened to recordings of traditional musicians to ensure the score had a culturally traditional sound.

In 2019, Göransson's score for Black Panther won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.

On 22 May 2019, it was announced that Göransson was composing the film score for Christopher Nolan's Tenet.

Since 2019, Göransson has composed the score for the Disney+ television series The Mandalorian, which is set in the Star Wars universe, as well as the fanfare for the franchise's brand logo.

He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for both season 1 and season 2's finales.

In 2021, he started scoring sessions for The Mandalorian's spinoff series, The Book of Boba Fett, which premiered on 29 December 2021.

In 2021, he was chosen to be the composer of the new fanfare for Warner Bros. Pictures, which combines a new arrangement of "As Time Goes By" with elements of the original Max Steiner fanfare.

In 2022, he worked on the scores of the Pixar film Turning Red and the second Black Panther installment, Wakanda Forever.

He worked on original songs and music with Justin Timberlake for the 2020 film Trolls World Tour.