The Ubiquitous Donald Glover
“I believe the people deserve quality and when they taste it, they see their own value and they don’t ask for less”-Donald Glover
According to Eric Wahl, “The purpose of art is not to produce a product. The purpose of art is to produce thinking. The secret is not the mechanics or technical skill that creates art — but the process of introspection and different levels of contemplation that generate it. Once you learn to embrace this process, your creative potential is limitless.” Great artists understand the purpose of art, but perhaps none of them have unlocked their creative potential quite like Donald Glover. He has assumed virtually every possible role in the world of modern entertainment: writer, comedian, rapper, singer, actor, director, and producer. However, he did not just make half-hearted attempts in these forays, in each he excelled.
Glover grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, a town very close to Atlanta. Stone Mountain is historically associated with the Klu Klux Klan, a white supremacist group, and growing up black and a Jehovah’s Witness, a conservative religious sect, in that town lead to alienation. Per The Daily Beast, Glover said “Being a Jehovah’s Witness amplified my own alienness, Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate Christmas. You don’t pledge allegiance to the flag.” However, Glover has also accredited this religious experience with shaping his creative outlook. “I believe it made me see the world differently. Part of the religion is teaching you that the world is an evil place, so trying to reconcile really liking stuff in the world but also being told it’s bad makes you want to figure out, ‘What is this?’ and ‘Why am I being drawn to this?”
After graduating high school, Glover attended Tisch Performing Arts School at New York University. During his college years, Glover and a few classmates formed Derrick Comedy, a sketch comedy group, whose work quickly went viral on Youtube. In 2006, towards the end of his college education, Glover was hired by actress Tina Fey, the creator of the NBC comedy 30 Rock, to work as a writer on the show. 2009 was a monumental year for Glover as he was cast as Troy Barnes in the NBC comedy Community and Derrick Comedy released a full-length feature film titled Mystery Team. On Community, Glover demonstrated his comedic prowess as Troy Barnes, a former football player turned loveable nerd along with his best friend Abed at community college. In 2010–2011, Glover had two comedy specials, a half-hour special on Comedy Central Presents, and an hour-long special titled “Weirdo”. Glover demonstrated his quick wit in his comedy specials and was masterful as Troy on Community, particularly in his ability to capture the over-the-top emotions of Troy.
Coinciding with his growth in the television industry, Glover launched a rap career under the stage name Childish Gambino. Early in his career he released several mixtapes including The Younger I Get, Sick Boi, and Poindexter which were heavily criticized for his excessively nasal voice and being too revealing about his personal life in his rap. Glover continued to hone his skills from project to project which ultimately lead to the release of his first studio album Camp in 2011. The album debuted at number 11 on the Billboard 200 with major hits such as “Bonfire” and “Heartbreak”. In 2013, Glover released his sophomore album Because the Internet which went along with a 75-page screenplay he released and a short film Clapping for the Wrong Reasons. Per Jacob Russell, Because the Internet “is a concept album, about the worst and best parts of living in the Internet age, about the internet itself.” Glover explained the meaning of the title as “Because the internet I’m here, because of the internet we’re all here. It’s the language of earth.”. The Album is split into five sections each of which depicts a progression in the narrative of the main character “The Boy” as he navigates the complexity of the internet and deals with his loneliness and borderline depression. Glover received two Grammy nominations for the project, Best Rap Album, and Best Rap Performance for the song “3005”. In 2014, Glover released Kaui/Stn Mtn a dual-mixtape. Kaui was more of a Pop mixtape, whereas Stn Mtn (Stone Mountain) was more Southern Rap. Already a celebrated rapper and actor, Glover really began to elevate himself to superstardom from 2016 onwards.
In 2016, Glover turned everyone in a loop as he changed music genres almost entirely with the release of Awaken, My Love!, a funk album. Though a very drastic change from Glover’s previous music, the album was a major success. Many would agree that this album was near the top of his work, if not his best album yet. The album taps into the funk lore of the past, specifically the 1970s group Parliament-Funkadelic. In an interview with Billboard, Glover said “I remember listening to songs my dad would play — albums by the Isleys or Funkadelic — and not understanding the feeling I was feeling. I remember hearing a Funkadelic scream and being like, ‘Wow, that’s sexual and it’s scary.’ Not having a name for that, though; just having a feeling. That’s what made it great.” The Album is highlighted by the amazing production and Glover’s phenomenal falsetto. “Me and Your Mama”, “Redbone”, and “Terrified” are the main standout songs on the project. Perhaps the most impressive accomplishment of that album is that “Redbone” was such a phenomenal funk R&B song that it even became a hit on what would otherwise be solely pop radio.
Though Glover had some movies role after Community, his next major role would come when he announced he was launching a TV show titled Atlanta on FX which premiered on September 6th, 2016. In Atlanta, Earn played by Glover decides to become the manager of his cousin Al who is attempting to establish himself in the Atlanta rap scene. Earn, Al and their close friend Darius deal with a wide variety of social issues as they navigate the Atlanta rap scene. Though the show is a comedy, every episode ties to a message on the society that we live in. The ways in which it incorporates messages on current social issues in the U.S are incredible. The show explores race, parenthood, and poverty. The show catapulted Glover to new heights of fame. Glover won two Emmy’s for his work on the first season: Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Best Directing for a Comedy Series for Season 1 episode 9, B.A.N. According to The Verge, “Glover is the first black director to win an Emmy for work on a comedy series, and the first black man since 1985 to win an Emmy for lead acting in a comedy series.” Glover has also had roles recently in The Martian (2015) and Spiderman-Homecoming (2016), though both were small.
Then in 2018 while he was hosting Saturday Night Live, Glover broke the internet with the drop of the “This Is America” music video, which explored the issues of modern America such as police brutality, and gun violence. The song in and of itself is good, however, it is the music video which elevated it to another level. People spent countless hours analyzing the symbolism of each frame of the video trying to understand exactly what Glover was trying to convey. But when asked in during an interview if he could explain the video Glover said “No, I feel like it is not really my place. I don’t want to give it any context. I feel like if I do that, it just doesn’t feel good to me, it doesn’t feel good to anybody.” In other words, art is made for the consumer so to limit it to just the artist’s perspective undermines the artwork itself.
Around that same time, Glover starred as Lando Calrissian alongside Alden Ehrenreich in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Though Solo was met with mixed reviews, Glover was seen as one of the biggest highlights of what was mostly a mediocre movie. Glover then took on another beloved movie role when he was cast as Simba in the Lion King.
According to Highsnobiety, at the Governer’s Ball in 2017, after a performance of Redbone, Glover said “You’re in my heart. I’ll see you for the last Glover album.” There was no full clarification after this quote from Glover. Would the next album be Glover’s last musical project? The majority of people did not think that was the case rather many thought his next album would be the last under the moniker of Childish Gambino. According to Billboard, when asked about his retirement of Childish Gambino, Glover said “I think if a lot of things had death clauses in them, we wouldn’t have a lot of problems in the world, to be honest. I think endings are good because they force things to get better.” Glover’s most recent work came just last month when he released 3:15:20, first as a single day release on only his website and then as a full album available on all platforms. The album is a combination of many different genres including pop and hip-hop. Glover had previously emphasized how he wanted to transform his albums into experiences. In 3.15.20, all tracks aside from “Time” and “Algorhythm” were just named as timestamps for where they fit into the entire album to emphasize that the whole album is an experience and each song is continuing from the endpoint of the last. Glover created the album after having experienced tremendous loss when his father died. The channel thought on Youtube discussed a hidden message from Glover found within the source code of the website for the album. The hidden message details Donald’s experience following his father’s death and his drastic change in perspective. According to thought, “There is an acknowledgment that things can’t feel off forever. That he needs to at some point move on and to Glover that closure that he is seeking comes through representing his father’s legacy through his words and through his art. [Since] he says that he plans on singing in the first book, I would say the album itself is the first book.”
Glover has proven that with hard work and dedication you can carve any path you would like to take in any field. He has never allowed his creativity to be confined within a predefined box and is now simply known as a great multifaceted artist. His ability to analyze society and give a nuanced perspective through his projects is phenomenal. On numerous occasions, Glover’s work has shifted my own perspective on society and provided insights that I had never thought about before. Donald Glover is a unique artist because of his skill for intertwining beautiful art with messages on social issues. He understands that the purpose of art is to provoke thought and that art requires introspection. No other artist has ever had such a profound impact on every single sector of the entertainment industry quite like Glover. He is audacious as he has demonstrated by repeatedly tackling controversial issues in his work. Glover has constantly reinvented his music style and taken on different types of roles as an actor. In a world of highly commercialized art, Glover has consistently produced exceptional-quality work regardless of the artform. That is what makes him a great artist, a virtuoso, a modern renaissance man.
