Donald Glover, also known under his rap alias Childish Gambino, is an actor, writer, director, comedian and musician. While he is known for his acting roles in movies and shows like “Community,” “The Lion King” and his own show “Atlanta,” Glover is probably best known for his music. Songs like “Redbone,” “This is America,” and “Feels Like Summer” all have hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. Covering his four studio albums and his single “This is America” helps to showcase the artist Gambino.
In 2005, Gambino would start his musical career with the release of the mixtape “The Younger I Get.” Gambino would continue to release various mixtapes throughout the years as he gained success as a writer on the show “30 Rock” and as an actor on the show “Community.” In 2011, Gambino finally released his first studio album “Camp.”
“Camp” was released to mixed reviews. The album was liked by fans of Gambino; however, the album had almost no critical success receiving mostly negative reviews. “Camp,” as an album, is a very different type of album than what Gambino would put out afterwards. “Camp” is the most boastful album out of Gambino’s four. At the time of this album’s release, Glover was 28 when “Camp” was released. He was experiencing his first real success in the entertainment industry, starring in the NBC sitcom, “Community.”
This more arrogant side of Gambino is seen in tracks like “Bonfire” and “You See Me.” The album also has some more emotional songs. “Letter Home” and “Kids” are both more emotional tracks about love.
However, the final track of the album, “That Power,” is what sticks out the most. The song starts as a normal rap song, but about three minutes into the almost eight minute long track, it shifts from rap to a story over the backing music.
Gambino talks over the beat about being at a summer camp as a kid. He meets a girl, and they spend all summer together, as they are on the bus back from camp Gambino decides he should tell the girl he has feelings for her. The girl doesn’t give a definitive answer as to if she also has feelings for him. Gambino then falls asleep. When he wakes up, they are in the parking lot where he gets picked up. The girl is gone, and as he is gathering his things a group of girls walk by and make fun of him for what happened between him and the girl.
After telling this story, Gambino talks about learning a lesson from this. He says he learned to “cut out the middleman. Make it for everybody, always.” He learned that if he tells one person something, eventually everyone will know. This means he should just tell everyone everything because they will find out eventually.
Two years after the release of “Camp” Glover started posting a series of sticky notes on his Instagram. Notes that read things like “I’m afraid of the future,” “I feel like I’m letting everyone down” and “I’m afraid it doesn’t matter at all.” These are just a few examples of the notes he wrote, but they all pertained to him not feeling like he is enough as a person or entertainer.
Gambino would also show up to all his interviews wearing the same jacket and hat. Gambino talked a lot about the meaning of life and death.
Prior to this. Glover was never really known to talk about these existential issues. This all ended up being connected to the release of his second studio album, “Because the Internet.” This album was released alongside a plethora of music videos, two short films, a screenplay and an accompanying tour. “Because the Internet” was much bigger than an album. Glover had created a world where his music lived.
The album “Because the Internet” is the soundtrack to the accompanying 72-page screenplay. The screenplay follows the character of The Boy. The screenplay starts with The Boy as a child, getting off a bus from summer camp and being picked up by his wealthy father. This is suspected to be the boy in “That Power,” but this hasn’t been confirmed by Glover. There is then a time jump to when The Boy is in his mid-20s. The story follows the boy as he tries to find meaning in his somewhat meaningless life. The screenplay ends with The Boy dying in a pool after the police raided his house.
This is representative of how Glover felt at this time. He felt like his work wasn’t adding much more to the world than comedy. He decided to make an album about how he felt as he tried to find meaning in the world.
Musically, this album uses more electronic and experimental sounds compared to “Camp.” This album also isn’t fully a rap album. There is still a lot of rap, but Gambino does more singing on this album than he had done previously. The front half of the album is very rap heavy, but as the story of The Boy becomes more serious and existential the album there is less rap and more experimental sounds.
After “Because the Internet” Gambino would release an EP named “Kauai.” This would be an extension to “Because the Internet” with a few more songs about The Boy. This was released in October 2014.
After not releasing music for almost two years, in June of 2016, Glover tweeted the phrase “pharos.earth” with a link to download an app of the same name. The app then had a countdown, and when the countdown reached zero, the app showed a map of Joshua Tree, California with dates in early September. This would be the first performance of Gambino’s third studio album “Awaken My Love.” “Awaken My Love” however, wouldn’t be released for another few months until December that year.
This was the first time Gambino would release a project that was fully not rap. This was a soul and funk album which took a lot of his fans by surprise. Thematically, this is also a very different album to anything Gambino had made before. “Awaken My Love” is about the birth of Gambino’s first son, and it acts as a letter to his son about how the world works.
“Awaken My Love” was also Gambino’s first time getting critical success. While his fans liked both “Because the Internet” and “Camp,” neither of the albums were really loved by critics. “Awaken My Love” was. It was nominated for, but ended up losing, “Album of the Year” at the Grammys; however, the song “Redbone,” from the album won “Best Traditional R&B Performance.”
In May 2018, while Donald Glover was both hosting and the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” he performed an unreleased song titled “This is America.” A music video was released for this song that night. This video for the song got a lot of attention on social media, due to the way it very bluntly depicts gun violence in this county.
Right now, the music has over 836 million views on YouTube. “This is America” is also Gambino’s most awarded musical project. It won all four of the Grammys it was nominated for including “Song of the Year” and “Best Music Video.”
After “This is America” Gambino released a two song EP in the summer of 2018 then didn’t release or talk about any upcoming musical projects until March 15, 2020. His website, donaldgloverpresents.com, started looping the same 58-minute group of songs. After 12 hours these songs stopped playing and there was nothing until a week later. On March 22, 2020, the album “3.15.20” was released on streaming services.
The release of “3.15.20” was unlike what Gambino had done before. There was no promotion around this album. It was released on streaming services and that was it. This album also exclusively focuses on the music. There was no cover art, and very few song titles. Most of the tracks are named after their timecode on the album.
This album is very similar to the second half of “Because the Internet.” It has the same futuristic and electronic sounds, as well as the same theme of death. This time not on the death of oneself, but the death of a loved one. This album tells the story of someone who lost their girlfriend in a shooting and dealing with the grief of that loss.
Glover was dealing with the loss of a loved one during the creation of this album, as his father passed away during his “This is America” tour in 2018. In one of the few external resources that was released alongside this, a handwritten note found in the depths of his website, Glover talks about how tough the loss of his dad was.
Since “3.15.20” Glover hasn’t released any new music. He has been focused on writing and shooting the last two seasons of his TV show “Atlanta.” Glover has confirmed he is working on new music but has yet to announce any timeframe of when it would be released.
Mark Warren can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @MarkWarren1832
Alex
Great article
Mira
Incredible work!