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Childish Gambino hits some high notes in his live rendition of 'Sober' for triple j's Like A Version segment. Like A Version is a segment on Australian radio station Telegraph Ave ('Oakland by Lloyd') - Childish Gambino. Sep 15, 2011 - Bonfire (Snippet). Listen & Download: New Childish Gambino “Bonfire” (Snippet). Bonfire (Snippet). Your thoughts on the fresh new track from.
There's a good chance Camp, the official full-length debut from rapper Childish Gambino, will land a top spot on the Billboard 200 after it debuts Tuesday, but that won't make it good. The album's success is practically guaranteed because of the MC's real name--Donald Glover. Glover has become a jack-of-all-trades in the comedy world thanks to his work as a founding member of Internet sketch group Derrick Comedy, a writer for beloved NBC sitcom 30 Rock, and an actor on another beloved NBC sitcom called Community. In the past few years he's garnered a rabid, cult fanbase that has, among other things, campaigned to get him the role of Peter Parker in the new Spider-Man movie.
Those fans have also downloaded Glover's deep back-catalog of free Childish Gambino mixtapes and albums despite the fact that the quality of those collections are spotty at best. Camp is no different. Though the production quality has improved, much of the magnetic, approachable personality Glover injects in his acting and stand-up comedy is absent, replaced by a laundry list of personal pain and some sharply conflicting egotistical boasting, all underscored by an endless stream of forced pop culture references.
Glover's lyrics aren't the only thing that distinctly cite other parts of our collective culture: His rapping and instrumentals are heavily cribbed from other, better artists. His raspy, aggressive spitting on lead single 'Bonfire' and the tune's bombastic hook come straight from the book of Lil Wayne; The instrumental for 'Sunrise' is a rip-off of a futuristic, funky jam by indie-pop Yeasayer that shares the same name--which Glover rapped over on a cut from his first I am Just a Rapper EP called 'I Can Hear Your Feet (Sunrise)'; On album opener 'Outside' Glover desperately wants to recreate the luxurious hip-hop soundscape of Kanye West circa My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Needless to say, the album is all over the place, and while Glover's body of music has always exhibited a strain of schizophrenia, that's usually been a thematic issue he's dealt with through sheer pluck and personality. On Camp there's an uneasy lack of cohesion that pervades throughout the entire album: It makes Glover sound less assured, transforms its most interesting and accessible moments into lackluster experiences, and makes the collection feel ten times longer than it is.
At the center of Camp is a scuffle between 'Donald Glover: The nice, down-to-earth guy you should feel sorry for' and 'Donald Glover: The ultimate lothario and the world's most talented being,' a battle in which there are no winners. Glover has never been able to handle the disconnect between these two sides of his personality before, and the vacillation between them from track to track is jarring. Despite the fact that Glover does his best to open up and reveal difficult parts about his childhood and current lifestyle in a sincere and perhaps unsettling manner, it's hard to empathize or sympathize with a guy who places women on a pedestal on one track, only to knock them off said pedestal and objectify them in a juvenile manner on the next tune.
Perhaps some MCs have the skills to pull off such tricky thematic work, but Glover isn't one of them: His spitting comes out in sloppy globs, and it's sometimes unfocused and nonsensical. Even when he isn't boasting about the size of his genitalia or being the greatest MC around, Glover's delivery smacks of smarminess. He tends to emphasize his most intricate referential points as if he were underlining, italicizing and bolding a certain phrase to show off just how clever he is, which is just about as enticing as a guy who tries to pick up women by telling them his decades-old SAT scores. Not to mention that he tries to reach too high and often falls flat, like one 'memorable' lyric from 'Bonfire': 'You're my favorite rapper now,' Yeah, dude, I better be / Or you can f***** kiss my a**, Human Centipede.' (This line is also an excellent example of Glover's nonsense: While straining to reference the infamous horror movie, he overlooks its 'medical accuracy' as those involved in the grotesque chain don't have the physical ability to kiss because the villain in the first film removes the lips of those in the centipede.) For someone who has made a career out of crafting perfect punchlines, Glover doesn't seem to know how to properly put together lyrics that can land a punch.
![Download Bonfire Childish Gambino Download Bonfire Childish Gambino](/uploads/1/2/4/7/124798130/406017058.jpg)
Camp is a mess that goes beyond Glover's shortcomings as a rapper. The entire package sounds shlocky and gaudy: It has an 'everything but the kitchen sink' feel to its production, with so many overblown string arrangements and instrumental pieces that the whole thing is a few didgeridoos short of being a joke about an egotistical musician that Glover might have written into a sketch. Though he clearly has plenty to say about race, rap, and his personal experiences, Glover's ability to express that in hip-hop needs work--lots of it. He may have some talent for rapping, but it never really blossoms into anything worth listening to on Camp. But that won't stop people from buying it: Glover has made enough fans with his other talents to trick people into thinking that his rapping is somehow on par with his other skills.
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Childish Gambino is the alter ego of multi-hyphenate American entertainer Donald Glover, who is also known for acting roles on television shows like Community and the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Atlanta, as well as the film Solo: A Star Wars Story. As Childish Gambino, Glover refined his off-kilter brand of hip-hop on his 2013 breakthrough album Because the Internet, before making a sharp turn toward R&B-inspired funk, which won him a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance in 2017 for the single 'Redbone.' In 2018, his politically charged song 'This Is America' debuted at number one atop the Billboard Hot 100, buoyed by a viral music video that addressed gun violence and racial injustice.
While studying at NYU, Glover joined the sketch comedy group Derrick Comedy, which caught the attention of Tina Fey, who hired him in 2006 to write for 30 Rock. Three years later he left that job to move to Los Angeles and was soon cast on the sitcom Community. The year before, he had released his first mixtape, Sick Boi, under the moniker Childish Gambino, which was conceived by an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator. His next mixtape, Poindexter, was released on September 19, 2009, the same day Community premiered on NBC. While his brainy, sometimes goofy rapping style was established by these two mixtapes, his next efforts sought to expand his reach and touch on more serious subjects.
I Am Just a Rapper and I Am Just a Rapper 2 were released in quick succession at the beginning of 2010; followed a couple months later with Culdesac, a mixtape that showed off his soulful singing style. All the while he was still starring on Community, launching a successful standup comedy career, and making electronic music under the name mcDJ. Up to this point, all his music had been self-released, but that changed when he was signed to Glassnote Records in 2011. His first official album, Camp, was issued that same year. Busy as ever, Glover launched a tour that lasted into 2012, then released another mixtape, Royalty, denoting his new status as a more serious rapper and featuring a range of musicians including Beck, ScHoolboy Q, and Das Racist's Heems.
Along with guesting on tracks by Kilo Kish, Chance the Rapper, Young Dro, and Kenna, his next move was to reduce his commitment to Community in order to focus more on his music and other projects, most notably a production deal with the TBS network. He left the show for good in 2013, and that same year released his second album, Because the Internet. The record featured appearances by Chance the Rapper, Jhené Aiko, and Azealia Banks, and scored Childish Gambino a Top Ten debut chart placement, a gold record, and a nomination for Best Rap Album at the 2015 Grammy Awards. Glover kept up the same determined pace, and in 2015 released a new mixtape, STN MTN (named for Stone Mountain, Georgia, where he grew up), and EP, Kauai, both of which showed him expanding his sound, with the latter featuring more singing than before. His next big project was creating and starring in Atlanta, a well-received comedic drama set in the titular city. The show debuted in September of 2016 and was an instant commercial success. Glover would direct a handful of episodes, later winning an Emmy for his directorial efforts. In addition to winning a Golden Globe for Best Television Series Musical or Comedy, Atlanta also scored Glover a Best Actor statue.
In late 2016, Glover began dropping hints about a new album, playing a festival in California where he debuted new songs. The first taste of his new sonic direction arrived with 'Me and Your Mama.' It was a new sound cooked up by Glover and longtime producer Ludwig Göransson, based on deeply weird late-'60s and early-'70s psychedelic funk and soul like Sly & the Family Stone and Funkadelic. Peaking in the Top Five of the Billboard 200 upon release in late 2017, the critically lauded 'Awaken, My Love!' featured Glover forgoing his trademark rap style in favor of stretching his vocal range in a variety of styles. The album's soulful single 'Redbone' was also a hit, peaking just outside the Hot 100 and adding Grammy winner to Glover's résumé.
Switching back to acting for a stint, Glover was featured in Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017 and cast as Lando Calrissian in 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story. As promotion for that film was underway, Glover hosted Saturday Night Live and performed as Childish Gambino. He debuted the trap-indebted song 'This Is America,' which quickly became a viral hit for its controversial music video and politically charged lyrics. The track debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 in May 2018 and would sweep the Grammys that year.
At the 61st annual Grammy awards, held in February of 2019, 'This Is America' took home a total of four trophies, winning Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Best Music Video, and Best Rap/Sung Performance. ~ Tim Sendra & Neil Z. Yeung
While studying at NYU, Glover joined the sketch comedy group Derrick Comedy, which caught the attention of Tina Fey, who hired him in 2006 to write for 30 Rock. Three years later he left that job to move to Los Angeles and was soon cast on the sitcom Community. The year before, he had released his first mixtape, Sick Boi, under the moniker Childish Gambino, which was conceived by an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator. His next mixtape, Poindexter, was released on September 19, 2009, the same day Community premiered on NBC. While his brainy, sometimes goofy rapping style was established by these two mixtapes, his next efforts sought to expand his reach and touch on more serious subjects.
I Am Just a Rapper and I Am Just a Rapper 2 were released in quick succession at the beginning of 2010; followed a couple months later with Culdesac, a mixtape that showed off his soulful singing style. All the while he was still starring on Community, launching a successful standup comedy career, and making electronic music under the name mcDJ. Up to this point, all his music had been self-released, but that changed when he was signed to Glassnote Records in 2011. His first official album, Camp, was issued that same year. Busy as ever, Glover launched a tour that lasted into 2012, then released another mixtape, Royalty, denoting his new status as a more serious rapper and featuring a range of musicians including Beck, ScHoolboy Q, and Das Racist's Heems.
Along with guesting on tracks by Kilo Kish, Chance the Rapper, Young Dro, and Kenna, his next move was to reduce his commitment to Community in order to focus more on his music and other projects, most notably a production deal with the TBS network. He left the show for good in 2013, and that same year released his second album, Because the Internet. The record featured appearances by Chance the Rapper, Jhené Aiko, and Azealia Banks, and scored Childish Gambino a Top Ten debut chart placement, a gold record, and a nomination for Best Rap Album at the 2015 Grammy Awards. Glover kept up the same determined pace, and in 2015 released a new mixtape, STN MTN (named for Stone Mountain, Georgia, where he grew up), and EP, Kauai, both of which showed him expanding his sound, with the latter featuring more singing than before. His next big project was creating and starring in Atlanta, a well-received comedic drama set in the titular city. The show debuted in September of 2016 and was an instant commercial success. Glover would direct a handful of episodes, later winning an Emmy for his directorial efforts. In addition to winning a Golden Globe for Best Television Series Musical or Comedy, Atlanta also scored Glover a Best Actor statue.
In late 2016, Glover began dropping hints about a new album, playing a festival in California where he debuted new songs. The first taste of his new sonic direction arrived with 'Me and Your Mama.' It was a new sound cooked up by Glover and longtime producer Ludwig Göransson, based on deeply weird late-'60s and early-'70s psychedelic funk and soul like Sly & the Family Stone and Funkadelic. Peaking in the Top Five of the Billboard 200 upon release in late 2017, the critically lauded 'Awaken, My Love!' featured Glover forgoing his trademark rap style in favor of stretching his vocal range in a variety of styles. The album's soulful single 'Redbone' was also a hit, peaking just outside the Hot 100 and adding Grammy winner to Glover's résumé.
Switching back to acting for a stint, Glover was featured in Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017 and cast as Lando Calrissian in 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story. As promotion for that film was underway, Glover hosted Saturday Night Live and performed as Childish Gambino. He debuted the trap-indebted song 'This Is America,' which quickly became a viral hit for its controversial music video and politically charged lyrics. The track debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 in May 2018 and would sweep the Grammys that year.
At the 61st annual Grammy awards, held in February of 2019, 'This Is America' took home a total of four trophies, winning Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Best Music Video, and Best Rap/Sung Performance. ~ Tim Sendra & Neil Z. Yeung
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