Gambino Is A Mastermind. Glover Is The Master.
Farewell Childish Gambino. Long live Donald Glover. The multi-hyphenate announced his intentions to retire Childish Gambino after the release of his 4th studio project. That was way back in 2018. Glover has always been publicly ambivalent of his celebrity. But he has firmly cemented himself as the ultimate every-man.
By his early 30’s Glover had earned more success than most can dream of as a writer, actor, and musician — I hesitate to say rapper because his latter work is so much more than rap. Glover’s career has always (and inevitably) grappled with the issue of race, but also bucked tradition by harnessing his preternatural emotional knowledge to explore the depths of what it means to be human here and now. The issue of race in America is one I will never fully be able to understand as a white male — and I won’t even attempt to tackle it — but Glover has come to terms with the color of his skin influencing his career. In the New Yorker’s 2018 Profile talking about his role as a writer on Tina Fey’s “30 Rock” he wondered “Am I being hired just because I’m black?” To which the answer was largely, yes, because NBC’s Diversity Initiative basically “made him free.“ After being a writer on “30 Rock” for 3 years he left to join the cast of the cult-favorite sitcom “Community.” But, after a number of years of being cast in front of a mostly white-audience he fully leaned into his Childish Gambino persona.
Childish Gambino lived before 2011 — hell, I went to a Gambino concert in 2010 where Glover opened for himself with a 30 minute stand-up set — but 2011 is when he made the leap from mixtapes released for free to a full studio release. Camp was welcomed with extremely mixed reviews, but that was only the beginning of his greater musical ambitions. His follow-up project came with greater ambition though. Glover pulled together a collective to achieve greater artistic ambitions — Royalty. Together, they have mapped nearly every one of his career moves since 2012. The first true project to come from Royalty was Clapping For The Wrong Reasons, a project written by Glover and directed by Hiro Murai to start the launch campaign for Because The Internet. Because The Internet went on to earn 2 Grammy nominations. Gambino’s follow-up was a great departure from his hip-hop/rap roots — and instead looked to history. “Awaken, My Love!” is a full-blown funky R&B departure, and arguably some of his best work. Royalty’s ambitions have always gone beyond music though.
The greatest proof of their greater ambitions is “Atlanta.” The inspiration came from Glover growing up a mere 20 miles from the cultural epicenter for African Americans. On the surface, “Atlanta” is a show about Earn, played by Glover, and his cousin navigating the rap scene of Atalanta; but in reality it’s a vehicle for so much more. Glover wanted an honest and naked telling of what it means to be young, talented, and black in the South. To pull this off, Glover and Royalty pulled together one of the only all-black writers’ rooms in entertainment. It was a hit and FX has basically given Glover and his writers the freedom to do “almost anything.”
And of course, none of this has even touched upon his forays into bigger projects like The Martian, Magic Mike XXL, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Solo, and most recently The Lion King. He had varying degrees of involvement in each of these projects ranging anywhere from a 2-scene guest star to leading man; but each of these roles gave him the opportunity to learn. Glover looks at each of these opportunities as a way to “gain some of your power.”
Glover’s career has evolved into something beyond most people’s comprehension because of his ability to “gain some of your power” across industry, medium, and genre. Gambino released what many will consider his magnum opus, This Is America, in 2018 and all but catapulted him to stardom. But, at his moment to fully embrace super stardom he side-stepped it.
Glover unceremoniously dropped his last Childish Gambino project on a website, donaldgloverpresents.com, where it streamed on loop for less than a day just to be pulled down. A week later it popped up on streaming services as 3.15.20 with no album art and timestamps replacing track names. This final project seems to be a stylistic culmination. It features both Gambino rapping and singing. It asks big esoteric and obtuse questions, while managing to ground them in the reality of America. It all really comes down to one question posed to his son: “What do you love?”
This may be the end of Gambino, but it is far from the end for Glover. I’m sad to say goodbye to Gambino, but I’m excited for the future of Royalty.
