Anyone else hear the new Childish Gambino record?

Here's what showed up on my screen as soon as the last moments of the video ended:

https://i.imgur.com/USzSBZJ.png

The new song/video are 100% fire

^^^

childish gambino is karmin without the blackface

― carles danger mous (s.clover), Sunday, May 6, 2018 8:46 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

uh care to expand on that

yeah that's a pretty weird comment to lay out there. Is Glover/Gambino theatrical? Yes. otherwise I don't get what you're saying at all.

god there are so many bad takes on the video already and it's only monday morning

(not itt so much)

I took the Karmin comparison to mean "a showier, wild-appeal repackaging of popular contemporary sounds and ideas from an entertainer almost so good at it that it seems cynical."

except karmin are terrible and he isn't?

I was cringing at that Karmin comparison but didn't want to dissect what it means that a black person is not doing blackface.

I get that comment a little bit; I found the initial incarnation of Childish Gambino deeply, deeply unconvincing in sincerity of presentation; it always struck me as more of a “this is how a rapper would present this” pose rather than “I’m going to tell this story via rap” if that makes any sense. Karmin has a similar pose going on whenever Noonan raps and I find it super off putting and unenjoayble. CG on this track, both with the musical template, the story he’s telling, and the video he put with it, cleared a sincerity hurdle for me that lets me vibe without reservation with what he’s doing.

I feel similarly, early days CG felt a little theatrical, but now feels lived-in

The critical about-face on Gambino as the world’s most unnecessary punchline rapper to the world’s most important political auteur is staggering.

no question that the current incarnation of gambino is better than that initial incarnation. but donald glover is an extremely talented writer, and possibly the most gifted comic actor of his generation, and he should do that more and do music less.

Ok, I now understand that comment by reading it "prior to this weekend, childish gambino was karmin without the blackface."

"god there are so many bad takes on the video already and it's only monday morning"

are there?

remember when we didn't need an exegesis to enjoy a music video? those were the days

video and commentary aside, musically this is definitely one of the best songs he's ever done; catchy, memorable, excellent.

I mean on twitter the two duelling takes I keep seeing seem to be "zomg this is An Incisive Commentary and Everything We Need Right Now" vs "this is an Irresponsible and Problematic statement that emphasizes black-on-black violence and fails to address...[etc.]" and like honestly can we just not do this

anyway I want to echo everyone who said this song seems to represent a step up even if I'm not 100% convinced yet (by his music that is - Atlanta is amazing)

Teddy Perkins >>>>> this video, certainly

I mean on twitter the two duelling takes I keep seeing seem to be "zomg this is An Incisive Commentary and Everything We Need Right Now" vs "this is an Irresponsible and Problematic statement that emphasizes black-on-black violence and fails to address...[etc.]" and like honestly can we just not do this

― Simon H., Monday, May 7, 2018 7:37 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was it ever not thus?

I really liked the other song he did on SNL too. Like an upgraded Bruno Mars. A whole album of that please, especially since I was always fairly lukewarm on "Redbone."

Teddy Perkins >>>>> this video, certainly

― akm, Monday, May 7, 2018 12:59 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbh not sure that Teddy Perkins would make my top 5 of S2 Atlanta episodes

tbh the comment was in regards to the latest video too. i've been really put-off by the amount this thing has been lauded. as political statements go its not very impressive imho and the very on-the-nose frission between the violence and gospel, the wry "look i'm rapping about guns" verses, the mugging in the video, all feels very theater-school or try-hard art project to me still. And the degree to which this is has been singled out as somehow above-and-beyond typical rap and r&b rather than a sort of clever-clever pastiche of it is has been getting to me.

dang, that new video

lol, oops sorry s. clover, that wasn't meant in response to you!

glad to see someone else with some positive words for "Saturday", I thought that one was pretty cool too and "upgraded Bruno Mars" is very much otm.

I liked the song Saturday better at first, until I saw the video for This is America.

Bruno Mars is exponentially better at singing, dancing, performing and writing hits, please explain what this “upgrade” is

I've just never connected with Bruno whatsoever. I get why people like him, I just have yet to not get immediately annoyed by any of his singles. "Saturday" seems a marginally more nuanced pastiche than Bruno's glaringly obvious ones.

s clover otm

I mean I don't see how it's in question that donald glover's current music is several orders of magnitude better than his old stuff

upgrade from Bruno mars not Childish Gambino

Children go nuts when Bruno Mars' music comes on. That and Party in the USA.

my roommate loves old childish gambino. imo it is barely music

"try-hard" is a great imprecise label for justifying your dislike of anything anywhere ever

Dude was rapping like Copywrite like three years ago but now he’s better than Bruno Mars

but he is better than bruno mars in some ways. the way the snl performance was choreographed and shot, for example, was better than bruno mars.

Bruno Mars used to perform at the Ala Moana mall, so you know, people grow.

donald glover gawked pete wentz better

I keep re-reading sterling's criticism of the video trying to find something I agree with. Nope.

I was all set to start arguing with Whiney and then people started saying Childish Gambino does Bruno Mars better than Bruno Mars so now I just want to delete this entire thread

And the degree to which this is has been singled out as somehow above-and-beyond typical rap and r&b rather than a sort of clever-clever pastiche of it is has been getting to me.

i haven't seen takes along those lines floating around yet but maybe i'm not tuned in to the right places.

i find it difficult to read "this is america" as any kind of 'pastiche' or overly-studied intellectual performance piece as much as something that seems to emerge pretty seamlessly from where contemporary black music is as an idiom right now! like, childish gambino is now a very successful mainstream recording artist with bona fide hits under his belt. even though yes, his most recent and biggest to date clearly *was* pastiche of a bygone musical era, that his next hit (as "america" very obviously will be) would bear the aesthetics of today's mainstream rap should not be even remotely surprising, even considering his past as a niche, hokey punchline-rapper (which apparently many of us can't let go of).

it's certainly presented in a manner, with the video especially, where it's meant to be read as overt commentary, even if the listener doesn't immediately know what to make of it and only has a vague sense of each line or shot's specific poetic 'meaning'. but it's a mistake to assume that the political messages it wears on its sleeve are substantially different from the subtext of many contemporary hits that have been percolating through the ether at any given moment over the past few years.

another thing. through much of the history of pop music, there's been a strong tendency for (white) americans, however much they enjoy or dislike it, to view contemporary black music (celebratory and despondent alike) merely as raw, unpracticed and unrefined expression that almost-accidentally happens to resonate in the wider culture rather than as art that takes skill to create and finely honed intuition to connect to its audience. young thug, quavo and 21 savage are among the several other contemporary artists peppering contributions here-n-there throughout the track. is gambino's supposedly intellectualized, studied 'pastiche' inadvertently making a mockery of these artists and the idiom they operate within? does anyone believe none of those other artists included would be capable of creating or performing this himself, or that none could do it 'authentically'? is this just another lil dicky getting fetty wap to sing "we're gonna save that money!" on "thrift shop" version 0.6?

for me it's not, but ymmv.

anyway i'm going to stop thinking now and just say that bruno mars is good but not that good, and the same is true of mr. glover.

I still get emotional each time I watch the video. I find it highly thoughtful for this moment in time.

OTM. Sometimes it's okay to just leave the chins unstroked.

Not to take anything away from DG, but I feel like Ludwig Goransson has been underrated as a producer (even having done Black Panther)

I don't think anyone seriously thinks that childish gambino does bruno mars better than bruno mars. I also don't think bruno mars does anything so singular that it must be described as bruno marsing, though. Anyway, it's easy to locate a perceived "upgrade" over bruno mars within the obvious ways that the two artists are different instead of the imagined idea that CG is somehow beating BM at his own game.

Extremely weird to me to even compare the two. They're so different!

Bruno's last record was a semi-effective pastiche of 80s R&B. Donald's last record was a semi-effective pastiche of 70s R&B.

Personally I don’t see why rappers can’t be theater-school kids (& vice-versa). Though I suppose dyl kind of gets at that up above.