With "Summer Pack", Childish Gambino blurs tracks of his ultimate album
Donald Glover is a regular counterpart. Hailed after his latest album Awaken, My Love!, The Atlanta native announced a few months ago his desire to complete the career of Childish Gambino with a final project.
A juicy contract signed at RCA Records and the release of a global hit later, the rapper unveiled yesterday by surprise Summer Pack, a mini-project consisting of two titles. As their names indicate, "Summertime Magic" and "Feels Like Summer" are two pieces calibrated for the summer, because of their sunny sounds and their resolutely romantic atmosphere. The atmosphere is no longer social protest but the frivolity of a beautiful holiday love, against a background of postcard and ice cream Italian. Where "This Is America" s a socially engaged and enraged manifesto, Summer Pack takes a 180-degree turn towards a world of sweetness and romance.
It is therefore difficult to establish even a simple sketch of a guideline for Childish Gambino's next album. This is not the first time, however, that Donald Glover's musical alter-ego has blurred his way from cock to donkey. After being violently criticized by the trade press for his debut album Camp, nerd-rap summit, Childish Gambino had shown more maturity on his second opus Because The Internet. A project cherished by the fans but which also did not fully convince the critics. After having tried to pop on the beautiful EP Kaui, the project that is closer to the sounds of Summer Pack, Childish Gambino had released his most successful album so far: Awaken, My Love! An album that moves away from rap to embrace funk and soul sounds, while carrying a message eminently political and committed to the African-American cause.
The success of its Atlanta series will end Donald Glover as one of the spokesmen of the black cause in the United States, and this well before the tidal wave "This Is America." Accompanied by a clip become Viral and decimated by millions of fans, Childish Gambino's penultimate single allowed him to make a real breakthrough with the general public and mainstream media. Violent, disturbing and dispassionate, "This Is America" oreshadowed a certain darkness for the rest and end of Donald Glover's musical adventures. An argument counterbalanced by his interpretation of a title entitled "Saturday" on the stage of Saturday Night Live a few months ago, without the latter having an official release.
Much less virulent than "This is America" n terms of sounds, "Saturday" is a superb piece funk also tinged with summer sounds. Nevertheless, on the bottom, this title evokes the malaise of the popular classes and the desire to forget poverty thanks to mass entertainment. As on "This is America", the ambivalence between the background and the shape of the piece occupies a central place. Listening to the dance "Saturday" and its festive rhythm, we think of course Stevie Wonder, an inspiration mentioned many times by Donald Glover, especially in Atlanta.
"This Is America" s sort of like an "intruder" in the middle of his three playful pieces. However, it is currently impossible to say that the last album of Childish Gambino will be cut for dancefloors seaside It is very unlikely that it will come out this summer. In addition, nothing promises that "Saturday" and the two titles of Summer Pack will appear on it. It would be much more logical to find "This Is America", which would guarantee by itself a fast certification to the Gambino project because of its extraordinary success in the charts these last weeks.
So what will be the ultimate part of Donald Glover's musical career? At present, only the main interested party and its long-time producer Ludwig Göransson know it. We can, however, imagine that Childish Gambino will offer his fans a synthesis of his influences and his know-how, by proposing pieces at once very rap-oriented to the image of his early career and other more melodious and instrumental tracks like what he produced recently. It remains to be seen how the Georgian artist will do to make all these elements coexist in a coherent project. Unless he decides to embark on a final salvo of sound experiments, repudiating his artistic past to try to operate an umpteenth reinvention.
More than a year ago, the rapper justified his desire to end the music industry: "I have the feeling that there is always a reason that explains the things that we do and I have always had a reason to be rebellious. Being rebellious has always been something natural to me and that's why we have always seen Atlanta as a series apart. I feel that the direction I would take if I continued with Childish Gambino would not be like that anymore. 'Redbone' is a rebellious piece because it's gospel that goes on the radio. I have the feeling that it is the farthest we can go before we simply become what happens on the radio. " Lyrics that resonate rather oddly today given the very "radio friendly" aspect of Summer Pack. The art of the opposite foot, again and again.
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