What Was Childish Gambino?

Donald Glover does not dabble. He has maxed his stats in every category. Naturally, Bando Stone isn’t only an album but also a feature-length movie with a postapocalyptic sci-fi setup. (The first and only trailer to date didn’t reveal a release date, and the promotional website for Bando Stone only says it’s “coming soon to IMAX.”)

There’s still hip-hop, country, and pop radio, of course, but these are waning formats, as streaming has outgrown radio in terms of listenership, and streaming, rather unlike radio, has a way of collapsing all artists, fan bases, and subcultures into singular platforms. Modern artists furthermore take an expansive view of their own musical forms. P... See more

Glover was a far more promising prospect in Hollywood, and so Childish Gambino was a much riskier and much more interesting pivot. Glover didn’t turn to hip-hop to become cool. He turned to hip-hop to reveal how deeply uncool he was. He was enigmatic. He was provocative. He was a righteous loser who modeled youthful suburban rebellion on hypermoder... See more