Who’s your favorite rapper? Drake? Kendrick? It seems that everyone has a different idea of who “the best” is. What does it take to be the best?: lyricism, vocals, rhymes, original ideas and entertainment. There are a lot of rappers and hip-hop artists that get the credit that they deserve, but there is one specifically that deserves recognition: Donald Glover, better known as Childish Gambino.

Glover was born in California, but soon after, his family moved to a town in Georgia called Stone Mountain, where he grew up just about half an hour from Atlanta. His home served as a foster home to many kinds of kids, a topic in his stand-up routine for Comedy Central “Weirdo.” Glover was also raised as a Jehovah’s witness, and I can’t even write that without picturing a young Gambino walking from house to house rehearsing the same lines, “Hi, my name is Donald, do you have time to talk about my mixtape?”

After graduating high school Glover attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where his career as an entertainer began. He got his acting start playing Troy, a character on the comedy “Community.” Bino’s graduating class voted him “Most likely to write a screenplay for The Simpsons,” so he did. That screenplay found its way into Tina Fey’s hands who helped Glover find a job at NBC where he became an award-winning writer for the show “30 Rock.” He now has his own show where he writes and acts called “Atlanta” on FX who signed for a second season after seeing the viewing numbers of just two episodes.

"Why does every black actor gotta rap some? I don't know, all I know is I'm the best one!"
-Childish Gambino on Bonfire (Camp)

But enough about that, what about music? Gambino started out by producing under the name mcDJ but changed his name when he got the result “Childish Gambino” from the online Wu-Tang name generator. He started releasing music online for free in 2008 but didn’t have a hit until he released "Freaks and Geeks" in 2011. Gambino showed off his lyricism with lines like “I am running this bitch, you are just a dog walker,” and “took the G out of your waffle all you got left is your ego.”

Bino shows his originality with a series of four albums that he calls “concept albums.” The first in the series of albums, Camp released in 2011, is a story of a summer camp Glover went to as a kid. There are a range of types of music on the album from Bonfire with lines like “burnin’ everything you mothaf***as talk about” to the last song on the album “That Power” where Gambino smoothly converts to spoken word and tells a story of a conversation on the bus home with a girl he liked.

"I like you, and you like me, and I more-than-like you, but I don't know if you do or don't more-than-like me." (That Power)

Next is Because the Internet released in 2014 followed by a 72-page screenplay to go along with the album and solidify the story. The opening scene in the screenplay makes the connection with camp clear;

Along with the connection the last line of camp is “I never got off the bus, I still haven’t,” and the opening line of the screenplay (pictured above) “You can’t live your life on a bus…” This sets up the album as Gambino’s maturing process with each song symbolizing something different. In “I. The Crawl” the first line is “Who am I?” and is an illustration of deciding what Gambino wants in life. In “II. Worldstar” the chorus is “all I wanna be is a WORLDSTAR!!” and is the decision that his desire is world fame. Gambino’s generally most well-known song, “V. 3005,” is off "Because the Internet" and is basically Gambino trying to convince a girl that he is going to be with her “til 3005.”

STN MTN/Kauai is one mixtape and is the last of the concept albums but was released as two separate tapes to contribute to the symbolism. The album symbolizes Childish Gambino, represented by STN MTN, and Donald Glover, represented by Kauai, coming together. The first song starts out on STN MTN with Gambino saying, “I had a dream I ran Atlanta,” and he goes on to tell us what he would do if he ran Atlanta; “I fire all the cops in Cobb county. Chick-Fil-A will be open on Sundays.” And things like “strippers will get Mother’s Day off, and I’d have my own Gangsta Grillz mixtape.” But when you get to the last song on Kauai and hear the last line “and then I woke up,” you realize the two albums are all a dream, wow.

After the concept albums, Gambino switched it up on us and released Awaken My Love! which is said to be “the teenage years of music” for Gambino helping him realize what music he enjoys making the most. Even though the album isn’t his favorite kind of music or what we “expect” from him it’s still a classic. You might know the song “Redbone” from the recent hit movie “Get out,” Jordan Peele said the song was perfect for the movie especially with the chorus repeating, “Now stay woke.” Gambino is quoted saying, “I think people hear ‘Redbone’ and they’re like ‘oh he switched all the vocals’” but he goes on to say, “I just sang differently… some sounds on it aren’t instruments at all, they’re just my voice, or clicks on my tongue.” The whole album is aimed at society in a way saying “Awaken” as another way of telling us all to wake up and “stay woke.”

"I was going through a lot, and I also think in America we're going through a lot right now." (on "Awaken My Love!")

While the only albums on Spotify and iTunes being; Camp, Because the Internet, STN MTN/Kauai and Awaken my Love, you can find his mixtapes and EPs like “Digital Afterlife” and “The Great Gambino.” All his music is genius lyrically, his vocals are smooth and he is always entertaining with word play in his lyrics. As Gambino once said “yeah, we never stop/ no period like menopause/no period like 'Oh shit!'/ am I the only one you sleepin’ with?” And within all this, besides his music and entertainment ability, let us not forget the role he played in bringing us Chance the Rapper. So, there it is, Gambino is deserving of the attention of the rap game. Go listen and decide for yourself, I recommend starting with some of his singled like Freaks and Geeks or his remix of “Rolling in the Deep” with Jamie XX.