diff --git a/drivers/gpu/arm/mali400/mali/Kbuild b/drivers/gpu/arm/mali400/mali/Kbuild
index c74369c6e843..7390ab758f22 100755
--- a/drivers/gpu/arm/mali400/mali/Kbuild
+++ b/drivers/gpu/arm/mali400/mali/Kbuild
@@ -10,6 +10,9 @@
 
 # This file is called by the Linux build system.
 
+# make $(src) as absolute path if it isn't already, by prefixing $(srctree)
+src:=$(if $(patsubst /%,,$(src)),$(srctree)/$(src),$(src))
+
 # set up defaults if not defined by the user
 TIMESTAMP ?= default
 OS_MEMORY_KERNEL_BUFFER_SIZE_IN_MB ?= 16