A Walk in the Park with Childish Gambino

Note: This article, originally published on October 28th, 2014, was written for Toronto Artist Collective, an online publication which is now defunct.

Twitter is slowly proving itself as the de-facto instant news source of the millenial generation. So it’s no surprise that on October 28th, a product of the plugged-in generation — internet renaissance man Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino — attracted a massive crowd to Trinity Bellwoods Park with a single tweet. There was to be an impromptu listening party for Gambino’s new album, Because the Internet, which is slated to drop December 10th. I trekked out there, camera in tow, to see exactly what a listening party in a park looked like for an artist who is mostly listened to with headphones on in front of a computer.

There was a fairly large, white and hip crowd gathered around a single table at Trinity Bellwoods, and another gathered around the stage in the lower level dog park. Such are the scheduling difficulties of spontaneous public album premieres. The former turned out to be the proper location, and after about 10 minutes of waiting, Community’s own Troy Barnes approached in a shearling jacket, iPhone in pocket. He approached the centre of the formed circle and took a seat beside a pair of speakers that looked like the Future Shop clearance special. Without a word, he plugged in his iPhone and music began to play.

Those familiar with Childish Gambino’s earlier work know of his Tumblr-over-16-bars style rife with upbeat hooks, relevant pop culture puns and self-observational lyrics. He’s successfully carved himself out a niche somewhere between Macklemore and Chance the Rapper as someone who you probably love if you haven’t listened to a whole lot of rap, but really enjoy Community and things that can be understood right away. The author’s cynicism aside, this seems to work, as he’s gained a massive, dedicated and purely 21st-century fanbase who eat up his every word and follow his every action through social media and, apparently, show up at a park to watch him sit down on a table and read a book while he plays his album.

This social media following came to a head a couple of weeks ago when he posted a series of pictures of confessional notes on a hotel paper pad to Instagram. These notes outlined his feelings about taking a reduced role on Community, being sick and tired of being sick and tired, and various thoughts on family, race and his public persona. Nowadays, broadcasting personal details to essentially the world at large is something that is second nature to most denizens of the internet, so it’s only appropriate that their poster child would use it as an emotional outlet when he’s going through tough times.

The music that Childish Gambino devotees of Toronto heard on Monday was a reflection of the state of mind that prompted Glover to type what he typed. The hoppy and active beats of his past mixtapes and albums gave way to cold, cloud-rap inspired soundscapes, with Gambino himself tackling things with a slower flow. Keeping his wordplay skills intact seems like an important point of pride for him, and the songs were chock full of metaphor and reference that most 18-year olds with a twitter account would have no trouble understanding. How his fanbase will handle this departure from the “Freaks and Geeks” Gambino that has everyone wanting to jump around at a party to a more introspective, emotional Gambino is yet to be seen — the internet generation’s notoriously ADHD tendencies don’t give way to much tolerance for emotional support towards those who entertain them (especially in as one-dimensional a way as Donald Glover is known for doing).

At the end of the album, Gambino opened the floor to questions from the public. “The Beach Boys” was his response to a question regarding where the influence for the album came from. If Donald Glover is the Beach Boys, his recent behaviour and new album seem to have all signs pointing toward his inner Brian Wilson taking over the Mike Love of his comedic past.

Originally published at brrrton.tumblr.com.