Thinking Back to When Childish Gambino Wasn't Black Enough
About five years ago I interviewed Donald “Childish Gambino” Glover. It was a two-parter. For the first, I met him at Brooklyn Bowl. It was Halloween 2011 and the actor/musician was performing in costume, dressed as a park ranger in a fitted tan uniform with very short shorts. Glover is Black. At the time, the bulk of his fans were not. I noticed. The next day, while he was on his tour bus headed to Maryland, we spoke on the phone about that, the fact that he was uncool to most average Black Hip-Hop fans, and how his raps about struggling with his African American identity couldn't win them over—even with artists like Kanye West making it okay to be emotionally available via song.
Childish Gambino: 'J. Cole and Drake are Way Cooler Than Me'
"Drake wears gold chains,” he explained in stand-up comic fashion. “I could never pull off wearing chains. J. Cole's been to jail. I haven’t." Those were, and to some degree still are, the templates of star rappers (not to dismiss the aforementioned rhymers, because they’re talented as hell). And Glover, someone who’d been called “Oreo” because he was Black on the outside but loved “white things” like above the knee shorts, could not relate.With the 2016 Glover’s had it’s a great time to look back on that interview, to think back to a time when Childish was a middling rapper, part of an ensemble cast on a big NBC comedy, and most importantly, someone who wasn’t Black enough to be embraced by his own people.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOISf7Zo0DQIn the last few months, Glover’s written and starred in FX comedy Atlanta, which has put a kaleidoscope on a city that’s essentially been seen through the same pair of trap and dance lenses for the last decade by addressing race, class, our judicial system, love and more from several Black perspectives while tossing in enough jokes to make viewers both laugh with and at slice of life stories. Atlanta opened to rave reviews and is bound to clean up during awards season (Glover won Best Actor in a Comedy at last weekend’s Critics Choice Awards, then the show was nominated for two Golden Globes).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coWcTgU5PZ4And two weeks ago, Gambino released his third proper album, Awaken, My Love. It’s a funk-soul record absent of any rapping, just woozy falsettos and sobering lyrics reflective of the experience his not-so-famous peers live daily. It debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B Albums chart.https://www.instagram.com/p/BNgjtqdBrnE/?taken-by=questlove&hl=en Both Atlanta and My Love are evidence of Glover’s intrinsic Blackness. Nothing on Atlanta feels forced or effort-packed. Nothing about Gambino’s foray to funky town sounds pretentious (Complex didn’t agree. But Questlove, who plays a vital role in D’Angelo’s output loves it. So I’ll side with Quest). It all rings true. If there was a part of him that ever felt it needed validation from the Black community that hated on (or maybe worse, pretended he didn't exist) Gambino because he was too white or not “down” enough, I hope it’s long been filled with self-assurance. With the success Glover’s had this year, it’s evident that he’s always been down and it’s the folks who labeled him lame that are the corny ones. Just look at him singing “Redbone,” for crying out loud.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezbsbkqoRrsIn 2017 Donald has a role in Spiderman: Homecoming and in the next installment of Star Wars as a young Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams was the original). He returns with season two of Atlanta and likely will go on tour for My Love. Not bad for an awkward Black boy. So while he's still apt to do interviews with his feet out, let's not question which culture he's most connected with. He'll always be a top pick in the Black delegation's racial draft if I have anything to do with it.