Band: Childish Gambino
Album: EP
Best song: “Be Alone” is great.
Worst song: “Freaks and Geeks” blows.
I often use any of these records as a entrance into writing/thinking about something other than the music therein. I imagine I could write about the brilliance of the show Community here, but I don’t know that I could do that as easily as I’d like.
Indeed, Donald Glover does star on the NBC show, but his Childish Gambino moniker is a different animal than that of Troy Barnes. Where Troy is a bit of a manchild, Glover’s Childish Gambino persona is, well, a rap manchild with little to no personality.
It’s not to say that EP — a free, uh, EP — doesn’t have its charms. It certainly has one fine track (“Be Alone”) that shows a fair amount of self-reflection.
But, overall, EP is a very unimpressive group of four songs and one good song. Songs range from the failed attempt at real adult rap (“Lights Turned On”) to the patently awful (“Freaks and Geeks”). Indeed, “Freaks and Geeks” has the lyrical consistency of a Pavement record, only without the actual intellect or wordplay. “My Shine” tries to do what “Be Alone” does, only in a lesser way.
Lots of people do a lot of things and Glover is not a bad comedian (or writer, as his stint on 30 Rock shows). But, he’s not much of a rapper.
