Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) a New Cultural ICON

LUX Journal
Sep 3, 2018 · 2 min read

Donald Glover is redefining what it means and how to go about being a cultural icon. So many of our past icons have chosen one lane to influence and/or reflect on current popular culture but Donald isn’t just dipping his toe in…. He’s going all in, on all fronts.

So much of modern black culture is birthed in Atlanta, it’s no surprise that Donald Glover is also from Atlanta

Donald is making his art into a mirror that reflects what is wrong with our current state and making it more than just entertaining. He is holding up a mirror to our current times and struggles in “This is America”

This is an awesome analysis and interpretation of the symbolism in the video ‘This is America’ by Sonia Rio in the Washington Post

While hosting “Saturday Night Live,” Donald Glover dropped a music video for the new single “This Is America” by his rapper alter ego Childish Gambino. Watch it once, and your eyes will naturally be drawn to his movements and facial expressions. Watch it again, but focus on the chaos reigning in the background.

His latest Video “Feels Like Summer” take a completely different approach to popular culture, a much less serious one. The video feels like it simultaneously celebrates and casts a bit of shade on many of todays most popular hip hop artists. Choosing to do the video as an animated film is genius, eye-catching, and beautiful.

Of course most people probably know Donald Glover as ‘Ern’ on the hit show Atlanta. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a MUST SEE. It’s mostly an ironic comedy but every episode is quite different. Especially starting in the second season each episode stands on it’s own in a way. The creativity, message, comedy, and melodrama is hard to describe so it’s something you’ll have to experience for yourself. I highly recommend it.

A lot of people may not know this but Donald has done some stand up and it’s really very funny. I’d be interested to know if he plans on doing any more in the future but with all that he currently has going on, it’d be hard to imagine it will be any time soon.


Originally published at lux.luxboxcase.com.

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LUX Journal by @theWTFactory | Design, Architecture, Fashion, Style, Travel, & Lifestyle for the Modern Minimalist

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