DONALD GLOVER
This guy is simply way too talented: writer, actor, musician, comedian, producer. He started his showbiz career doing standup and as a comedy writer for Tina Fey on 30 Rock.
But it was as producer, writer, director and star of FX’s Atlanta that he scooped the Golden Globes and The Emmys in practically every category. His film credits include Magic Mike XXL, The Martian and Spiderman: Homecoming. But talking about his role as young Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story, Glover delighted in stirring the pot:
“How can you not be pansexual in space?” he said in an interview for Sirius XM, explaining Lando’s sexuality. “There are so many things to have sex with… If you’re in space it’s kind of like, the door is open. This thing is literally a blob. ‘Are you a man or a woman?’ Who cares? Have good time out here.”
In his music career, where he works under the alias Childish Gambino, he’s as provocative. On the release of his first album in 2011, titled Camp, he spoke about being “too black” for the white kids at his school, and being regarded as too gay by the R’n’B crowd (because he wore shorty shorts).
He has continued to raise issues of gender, sexuality, class and race in subsequent albums, Because The Internet (2013) and Awaken, My Love! (2016).
This year, his song This Is America debuted at the top of the Billboard 100, buoyed by a clever, confronting video critiquing racism in the US in 2018.
Successful, smart and fearless equals sexy.