Childish Gambino just released his last album. I will miss him.
OPINION: Donald Glover is retiring his musical alter ego, Childish Gambino, who expanded the boundaries of hip-hop and R&B.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
It feels like the end of an era. Donald Glover says his latest album, out Friday, “Bando Stone & the New World” is Childish Gambino’s last. and that makes me sad. Childish Gambino is one of the great musical projects of our era. I mean that. I’m not cool enough to dislike Glover. I still love “Atlanta,” which I called the Blackest TV show ever, and many of his other projects like “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”. With Gambino, he blended his musical talent, his comedic talent, and his perspective on Blackness in a fascinating way. With Gambino, he really had my heart.
When Gambino started, I thought it was a hilarious response to hip-hop. I thought it was Glover proving he can really rap, which was surprising in a way that was funny, but at the same time, he was using his Gambino persona to make fun of hip-hop’s self-seriousness and to attack the idea that he’s not really Black or that’s he’s some sort of Oreo-ish alternative Black. He was the king of the Blerds — Black nerds — which was oxymoronic because he was so deeply cool that he couldn’t really be a nerd.
I continue to listen to “Bonfire” from his 2011 debut album, “Camp,” at least once a week. It’s on my gym playlist. “Bonfire” is an incendiary roar that’s funny and sarcastic. It’s a way of mocking hip-hop while making great rhymes. He said, “Told me I should just quit. ‘First of all, you talk white / Second off, you talk like you haven’t given up yet.’ / Rap’s stepfather, yeah you hate me, but you will respect.” In those lines, he’s incinerating Black self-criticism and criticism of himself and toying with hip-hop’s metaphor style while also mocking the myriad ways that rappers declare themselves the best.
I thought that the Gambino thing was a conversation with hip-hop, but then, even more interesting, it grew into something entirely different. In 2016, we got “Redbone” from Gambino’s third album, “Awaken My Love.” The first time I heard it, I was shocked. I said who made that? I had no idea Glover had a song that soulful and funky inside of him. “Redbone” is an incredible record. If you snuck it onto an old Ohio Players or Parliament or Bootsy Collins album — or even one of the very early Prince albums — it would be right at home. “Redbone” isn’t a joke. It’s baby-making music. But the lyrics — the message to “stay woke” because people are creepin’ — suggest something deeper is afoot. Is it saying watching out because your partner may be cheating on you or is it a political message? Both? It’s a beautiful, compelling record that marked a turning away from silly Gambino into mature Gambino.
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Of course, Gambino’s aesthetic zenith came in 2018 with the iconic “This Is America.” I guess it’s a hip-hop song because a hip-hop song can sound like anything, and he’s basically rapping, but this is vastly different than much of hip-hop, certainly different than the hip-hop of, say, “Bonfire.” The artistic growth from “Bonfire” to “Redbone” to “This Is America” is stunning. This is another incendiary song that’s on my gym playlist.
“This Is America” is a danceable critique of America. Gambino talks about guns saying, “This is America / Don’t catch you slippin’ now,” adopting a message we normally hear from West Coast rappers — don’t be caught unaware and don’t be outside without a gun or you could be killed. But when Blood or Crip rappers say it, speaking to the gang and gun insanity in their area, that’s different than a nerd-ish national pop star saying it. When Glover says it, it means everyone in America needs to fear the gun epidemic. But in Glover’s brilliance, he includes the song’s speaker in the problem. He says “Guns in my area / I got the strap / I gotta carry ‘em.” The song also dives into capitalism and touches on reparations, but he does it by using words sparingly. He’s relying on lots of short words, bluesy repetition and listener interpretation. “This Is America” feels like a song with a hidden message you have to be Black to truly understand.
Childish Gambino was beautiful. I will miss him.
Toure is a host and writer at TheGrio. He hosts the TheGrio TV show “Masters of the Game,” and he created the award-winning podcast “Being Black: The ’80s” and its upcoming sequel “Being Black: The ’70s.” He is also the creator of “Star Stories” and the author of eight books, including “Nothing Compares 2 U an oral history of Prince.” He also hosts a podcast called “Toure Show.” He is also a husband and a father of two.
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