BEYOND CHILDISH GAMES
Glover gets serious about alter-ego Gambino’s musical statements
Donald Glover's art has defined 2018. It's an odd sentence to write considering his history.
Since Glover's days playing Troy Barnes on the NBC sitcom “Community,” his talent has been obvious. As Troy transitioned from cool kid jock to super nerd over a few seasons, Glover had the chance to thrive playing a character dominated by ego and one filled with nuance and sensitivity. Because of the show's experimental approach to storytelling, he could become a ridiculous ball of tears and weeping (about every third episode) and work on perfecting his flow (“Troy & Abed's Christmas Rap”).
Fast forward to Wednesday when, as his music alter-ego Childish Gambino, he headlines the TD Garden — the show is part of Gambino's 19-city fall tour.
But Glover didn't simply jump from playing a kid obsessed with butts on a cult sitcom to one of the year's biggest tours. The past 10 years have been an audacious swing from reality to success.
Glover's humorous flirtations with hip-hop on “Community” exploded into his early career as Childish Gambino — a moniker he pulled from an online Wu Tang Clan name generator. But his first few, often highly experimental releases paled in comparison to the Technicolor, lava-lamp glow of his music outside of hiphop. In 2014, he released the single “Sober,” which sounds like something Bruno Mars and Diplo would come up with after smoking a joint on the beach at sunset in Ibiza. In 2016 came “Awaken, My Love!” — a whole album channeling the fringe elements of funkadelic, Prince and Stevie Wonder that managed to score a global hit with him singing “stay woke” on “Redbone.”
Between hot and cool music projects, Glover became a master at stealing scenes as a blockbuster bit player (see “The Martian,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming”) and created the TV show “Atlanta” — both a surreal and hyper-realistic look at race and class, youth and family. While “Atlanta,” which he also stars in and occasionally writes and directs, has more nuance and weight than his other endeavors, the show and the rest of his artistic output seemed to serve as a windup to 2018.
First, Glover dominated “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” a supposed flop that still made $400 million and won critical acclaim. As a young Lando Calrissian, Glover had the moxie and insight to play the role as if he was a stereotypical '70s pimp with a heart of gold. More importantly, he stopped kidding around as Childish Gambino with “This Is America.”
Released in May, the song and its accompanying video examined the ugly intersections of race, racism, violence, capitalism, art and entertainment. The song dominated pop culture dialogue for weeks. The song became his first No. 1 and the video has 400 million views on YouTube. After starting summer with “This Is America,” Gambino finished it by releasing “Feels Like Summer” over Labor Day weekend. The tune takes on climate change and puts a tearful Kanye West in his MAGA hat in the animated video, which some believe symbolizes the end of his music career.
End? After defining 2018, that seems like a mistake. How about a break before jumping back in 2020? Something tells me we'll need this latest, intrepid incarnation of Childish Gambino in 2020.