SM Entertainment's founder Lee Soo-man served as the album's executive producer, with lyrical and musical composition contributed by Andreas Öberg, Sebastian Thott, David Amber, Jung Youth, Tony Esterly, Jonny Shorr, LDN Noise, Deez, Adrian Mckinnon, Mike Daley, Yoo Young-jin, Harvey Mason Jr., Dem Jointz, MEG.ME and others.

A hip-hop and R&B-heavily dominant record, Awaken contains songs corporating elements from pop and electronic music, performing in Japanese, Korean and English in order to "continue" the story from their first Japanese extended play Chain (2018).

[2][3] To promote the album, NCT 127 embarked on their first Japan concert tour, titled Neo City – The Origin.

The album also spawned two singles prior to its release, namely the Japanese version of "Touch" on September 16, 2018 and "Wakey-Wakey" on March 19, 2019.

[6] It was announced in August 2018 that NCT 127 would embark on their first nationwide Japan tour, Neo City – The Origin, starting in Osaka on February 2, 2019, with a total of seven stops in Hiroshima, Kanazawa, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Saitama and Osaka.