Childish Gambino: Camp Review

So music criticism is a new endeavor for this blog, but like Mr. Glover himself, I'm multi-talented, so let's give it a shot. If you've hung out with me at all in 2011, you've probably been annoyed by me raving about Childish Gambino to anyone who would listen, but the dude is insanely talented, and brings a certain brilliance to his music that, quite frankly, is too good to be missed. If you don't know, Childish Gambino is the rap name used by Donald Glover, who plays Troy on Community, wrote for '30 Rock' during the best years of that show, who was the star of the "Derrick" comedy group (they made the "Bro Rape" video of youtube fame), and who is a successful standup comedian. As he tells it, he typed his name into a "Wu-Tang Name Generator" site while in college, and has used the name Childish Gambino ever since. He's been putting out original music and remixes for several years now, up to this point for free on his site: www.iamdonald.com, while he flirted with various record labels and become more and more of a legitimate musician. Since September '09, he's put out several full-length mix-tapes/albums and an EP, and each one has steadily improved. In Summer 2011, Glover signed with Glassnote records, and "Camp" was released on 11/15/11.

Glover is an impressive and honest lyricist, blending pop-culture references with layered metaphors and personal reflections and the silly with the heartfelt. His verses run the gamut from clowning around to heartfelt questions on race, love and loneliness. It doesn't take very long to realize that this is one very smart, funny, sensitive dude. There are persistent themes: zero to hero, not being "black" enough, being picked on and called "gay" that pop up again and again, and are explored with a nuance, self-awareness and wit that frankly, isn't very common in hip hop. There are a lot of dick jokes and sophomoric humor that he winkingly acknowledges as just having fun. There's a sense of play throughout that offsets the more serious fare. As an artist, he manages to be serious enough to be taken seriously while keeping the whole thing fun. That's what successful comedians do, and that quality is successfully brought to his music as well.

The album has a definite arc to it, starting with the introspective "Outside", and building into more "party" tracks that are "Firefly" and "Bonfire" before offering the almost painful introspective lamentations on love and modern relationships that are "Letter Home" and "Heartbeat". The album closes with a long monologue that's part story about Summer Camp, part explanation for who he is today that has a poignancy and power far beyond a junior high camp story.




It's common to compare Gambino to either Drake or Kanye West, and superficially, that seems fair, although it's not quite apt. Drake is an actor turned rapper who sings his own hooks, and Kanye is a suburban raised kid who produces his own beats. Gambino is much less chained to hip-hop convention - which is a welcome relief. Does he talk about women and partying? Absolutely.. but the entire thing comes with a wink and a certain self-deprecating outsider's take. Where Kanye is blustering faux swagger and cockiness, Gambino is often a painfully self-aware glimpse into something deeper. Drake is the more polished performer, but is also much more grounded in hip-hop convention. It seems to me that Gambino might be delivering on what Kanye seemed to promise back with "College Dropout", that of taking hip-hop outside of the greater culture and bringing it to a more relatable level. I've read more than one review that compared this albumb to "College Dropout", but to me, the Kanye album that it's most similar to is "Graduation", and I think that's simply because of Gambino's experience and relative polish he's gotten while self-producing his music. He emerges not so much as a new artist but as a young artist. Still developing, but mature enough to have a voice. Where "College Dropout" didn't have a cohesive narrative as much as it had some very strong tracks, this one really rewards listening to the album in its entirety.

I can say right now that "Camp" is either my favorite or second favorite album of the year. It and Bon Iver will have to fight it out. I'm extremely excited to see where Childish Gambino goes as an artist - I think it's clear that if he chooses to put his mind to it, he can be a force in hip-hop. If you can't tell from this post in its entirety, I have a serious mancrush on Donald Glover and find his music to be extremely relatable and legitimately great in levels beyond "Hey, the dude from Community is rapping".

Check out this album, you won't regret it. 9/10