Coming from an artist known for taut wordplay and manically constructed similes, the broad strokes of Awaken are a shift: You’ll think eventually, but mood comes first.Īnd in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests that followed the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and so many more, Glover’s choice to echo a period in Black music when artists took on an explicitly revolutionary cast is a canny complement to albums like Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and Solange Knowles’ A Seat at the Table, both of which explored Black identity with new urgency. It makes for a tonal fluidity that also marks his work on the television show Atlanta, which he created. Like a funhouse mirror, he stretches his influences into weird shapes: The freak-outs are exaggerated to the point of comedy (“Me and Your Mama”) and the ballads romantic to the point of creepy (“Terrified”). The project spanned 11 tracksincluding the Grammy-winning. Glover said he’d started with childhood memories of his parents playing Funkadelic and The Isley Brothers on the stereo: specific sounds and songs, but more importantly, a general feeling-one that Glover wasn’t quite old enough to grasp. Awaken, My Love was released in late 2016 and debuted in the top five of the Billboard 200, marking Gambino’s highest-charting album.
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Maybe he’ll figure out how to smuggle Donald Glover’s heart into Childish Gambino’s brain eventually, but if he hasn’t figured out what he wants out of Childish Gambino yet, it’s increasingly rewarding watching him try.On the face of it, Donald Glover’s “Awaken, My Love!” is a museum-quality rip of early-’70s funk and soul: the faded vocals, the fuzzed-out guitars, the collective sense of chaos and exuberance. There are times, however, when that nodding feels more like mimicry than anything else. That same on-paper ability is what makes “Awaken, My Love!” a well-executed project: He has clearly absorbed a great deal of musical history, as the album nods to Parliament-Funkadelic, Sly and the Family Stone, Rick James, Prince, and more. (“Fandango my mandingo, we should do a movie” from a 2012 track with Danny Brown, for example.)
Rarely did he make a song about anything, and those zingers were plain obnoxious. As a rapper, he almost sounded the part: Take a step back, and there he was, rapping fast, switching up flows, delivering (too many) punchlines. He’s skilled enough to figure out how to excel at something, and, for the most part, look like he knows what he’s doing. It sounds like “Kokomo” for the “ Hotline Bling” era, or maybe Ween covering Sublime’s “Caress Me Down,” and its inclusion is entirely baffling, considering the sonic cohesion of the rest of the project.ĭonald Glover’s greatest talents remain his tragicomic touch as a screenwriter and his ease with performance.
“California,” a cringey tropical parody complete with fake patois, sticks out for the wrong reasons. There are also a few indistinguishable tracks that feel like funk retreads “Have Some Love” sounds uncomfortably close to “ Can You Get to That” from Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain. On “Have Some Love,” he limply advises the audience to “really love one another.” The song called “Riot” isn’t exactly riotous: He screams a little, but only for the sake of fulfilling a pre-ordained funk yelp quota-nothing in the song seems to have moved him to shrieking. Too much of the rest, though, simply nods to sentiment without producing any.
It’s a love song, which has always been Glover’s forte, whether on Because the Internet’s “ 3005,” “ Telegraph Ave,” or Camp’s “ L.E.S.” The same goes for the open-hearted “Baby Boy,” possibly inspired by the birth of his son. These songs dig into something that feels unique to Glover’s heart, not just his record collection. The tracks are embellished with intricate details throughout, like the delicate xylophone on “Terrified.” “ Redbone” builds from a slow jam into a peak of futuristic guitar and forceful staccato piano chords. Its imagery (“This is the end of us/Sleeping with the moon and the stars”) might be vapid, but the intensity of Glover’s singing compensates, as does the ripping electric guitar. The album’s first track and lead single, “Me and Your Mama,” is a satisfying slow burn that shows off Glover’s impressive falsetto. For his third album, Awaken, My Love, Gambino delves into the kind of grungy stanklove that OutKast once indulged in on their magnum opuses. Oumou Sangar) (Extended Version) Me and Your Mama.
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Like the cosmic soul it emulates, the atmosphere is lush, full of period ambiance worthy of a high-end television set. Oumou Sangar) (Extended Version) Beyonc JAY Z Childish Gambino. The album’s production is majestic, aiming squarely for the cosmos depicted on its striking cover artwork.
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