The Progression of Childish Gambino

From the moment I began listening to Childish Gambino, I loved him. The first time I heard his music was when me and my best friend were up to something illegal and he played me Redbone. This was when my taste in rap was just beginning to grow, and I didn't know much about the scene. This song took me places I'd never been inside my head. We proceeded to listen to the whole Awaken my Love! album and since then, everything changed.

Awaken my Love! is, and there's no doubt about it, an incredible album. Citing influences like Funkadelic, who have always been one of my favorite bands, it was sure to be great. In my opinion, this is one to the albums that brought jazz and funk back into the mainstream. The album showcases Gambino's artistic prowess in a pertinent and enjoyable way, and truly stood Gambino apart from the crowd of rappers that we are used to. However, the thing I found very interesting, is how much Gambino had grown as an artist up until that point. We first saw his love of funk and jazz on tracks such as 3005, or Oakland (Telegraph Ave.). Both tracks are wonderful, but the development we see from even just these songs alone is incredible. The knowledge of what exactly Gambino wanted to communicate to his audience was astounding.

Not long ago, I re-listened to his album Camp. Lyrically, the album focuses on Gambino's struggles being seen as not "black enough" and how this has affected him. His struggles with his identity and not fitting into the black community are clear main focuses of his music, and while he makes brilliant points coupled with witty quips, the thing that is clear across his earlier music is the previous insecurity he felt. He details how his family managed to move away from the projects and become middle class citizens, but yet they still struggled financially. He explains how he was alienated in his youth as he was seen as rejecting street culture, which he admittedly knew nothing about. He loved jazz from a young age, and wasn't that familiar with the rappers that typical black kids were. His music highlights a major issue in black street culture, which is the fact that if someone makes it out of those situations, instead of being congratulated they are seen as rejecting the culture.

While this album was impactful and important for young middle class black kids, it cannot be denied that Gambino's focus on the past kind of limited him both lyrically and musically. It seemed as if he wasn't yet completely secure in his identity.

However, as time has gone on Gambino has seemed to get more secure with his musical identity as it were. The fact that he has now embraced jazz as one of his influences, his personal flair that comes across his music is much more apparent. It just shows that he's quite unafraid to experiment with different sounds.

His latest tracks, "This is America," "Feels like Summer," and "Summertime Magic" all to me show extreme development as an artist. Rather than making the focus himself, he discusses global issues and political issues in a very impactful and clever way. "This is America" was analysed by so many people, all getting a different tone and message from the song. This song truly shows Gambino's understanding of both music, and the identity that he wants to have while creating music. The fact that a track such as this one was able to gain such commercial success further shows just how well Gambino knows music. Only a very developed artist is able to combine mainstream music tastes and important, meaningful messages in such effective ways.

Gambino's recent music videos have also been brilliant. The video for "This is America" was so well thought out that it adds a significant amount to the message of the track, as well as being extremely memorable in terms of the imagery used, which just exaggerates the message as it sticks with people. The video for "Feels like Summer" was incredible too. The amount of references to issues in popular culture, as well as the underlying theme of global warming that the song and the video, make it again one of those songs that can gain a large amount of commercial success while still being pertinent and meaningful. This progression from Camp up until now shows so much about how Gambino has developed as an artist.

That being said, I'm not surprised that Gambino wants to retire his stage name after the upcoming album. He seems to have changed so much musically that it almost seems like two people. However, I really hope he still makes music through some channel, possibly as Donald Glover. The world is still in desperate need of someone like him making the brilliant music that he does.