Childish Gambino is the brain-child of actor/comedian/rapper Donald Glover best known for his role of Troy on the NBC show Community, his campaign to get an audition to become the next Spider-man, or often being confused with being the son of Danny Glover. While he may not have succeeded at becoming everyone's favorite web-crawler, Glover has been successful with his music career. As he references on EP, due to his comedic background most people thought Gambino was a joke but after releasing his album Culdesac Glover quickly gained serious interest for his music. How does a side project from a comedian named after a Wu-Tang Clan name generator fair? Does Childish Gambino hold up well being taken as a serious release or just a distraction from Glover's true calling of acting?
EP starts off with the track “Be Alone” is one of the more low key songs on the album, with a r&b chorus Glover muses about his rise to fame. Even though “Be Alone” is one of his more chill tracks Glover still stands out and boasts with such lines like “My swag Jehovah Witness, dude, it never take a holiday” as well as drops references to Pitchfork and the Arcade Fire. These references can be related to Glover's interest in indie music and has been cited in interviews that he believes the hip hop community is too into itself and looses focus of other genres. The next song is “Freaks and Geeks” which starts strong and never lets you go, all in all a strong track and one of my favorites of the year so far. “My Shine” another strong track, doesn't vary much from the rest of the album, same can go for “Lights Turned On”, good tracks they don't set the world on fire but that's not what they are there to do. Finally EP ends with “Not Goin Back” is Glover's final lash out at his critics, which turns into a very effective track. Whether he raps about how he has to be a role model for “smart middle class black kids” or bringing up the lack of confidence critics have had in his career with the line(my personal favorite on the album) “Like that bullshit you talked before Culdesac, “I didn’t know he had it in ‘im!”, Couldn’t see me as Spiderman, but now I’m spittin’ venom.”
On the whole EP is a strong album that's main downfall is all of the topical pop references that are made through out the 20 minute run time. With such lines like “I’m the boss, Michael Scott, y’all bitches is just Phyllis” it's feasible to see the impact of a lot of Glover's rhymes could lose their luster as times goes by and pop culture changes. Through out the years many actors have tried to transcend their first career and extend their reach into music. Now Glover claims on the album that he's been rapping before he's been an actor but he hit his fame as an actor so he can count in that group but what sets him apart from the likes of the Bruno's and the Scarlett Johansson's is that Childish Gambino is actually good.
At first Childish Gambino can be misunderstood, Glover weaves pop culture references intertwined with humorous and sometimes shocking verses. But EP is so much more than that, Glover is able to keep the tempo up with his electric and upbeat delivery to balance his comedic versus with his more serious content. Rarely modest Gambino's brash delivery is a poster child for how shameless self promotion isn't necessarily a bad thing, and his nerdy aggro-rap is more than a comedic side project. At a run time of only 20 minutes EP is worthy of a spin or two from even a casual rap fan, doubly so considering Glover puts all of his music online for free to download. It may not be for everyone but after getting past the initial wave of Glover's energetic delivery you find a very solid album that is just a flat out fun listen.
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