ARTIST DONALD GLOVER ISSUE
42 ISSUE 2017
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ARTIST MAGAZINE
Writer turned actor, turned rapper, turned director?
I really wanna thank the Migos, not for being in the show, but for making ‘Bad and Boujee'. That’s the best song ever. Donald Glover during his Golden Globe acceptance speech
Donald Glover can do it all. The man who got his start writing for NBC's Community, released the first season of his comedy hit, Atlanta, in 2016. Mr. Glover took home two Golden Globes this year for the series, winning Best TV Series - Comedy, as well as Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical. Let's not forget he also debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 with the release of his third studio album, Awaken, My Love! under the moniker Childish Gambino.
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Atlanta Why has the first season of Atlanta been so successful? Context is everything. 2016 was a huge year for hip hop in Atlanta with hip hop artists such as Quavo, Swae Lee, Slim Jimmy, 2 Chainz, and Gucci Mane consistently dominating the hip hop billboard charts. While these artists are rising to international stardom, the same cannot be said for all of Atlanta's aspiring artists. Atlanta leads the nation in income inequality and in 2015 had a murder rate higher than that of Chicago. Donald Glover plays Earn, a Princeton dropout, who discovers his cousin, Brian, is trying to come up in the rap game behind the moniker, Paper Boi. The genius of Atlanta is behind the writers'
the writers' intersectional approach toward comedy.They have successfully present frameworks such as blackness, gender roles, and class separation through humor and irony. As a result, the viewer is given a show that allows the viewer to see America through the lens of Donald Glover. While the viewers are exposed to societal issues, they do not feel as if they are being preached to by social justice advocates, which is important in order to reach a larger audience. Having grown up in an Atlanta suburb himself, Donald Glover directs this to perfection.
Earn and Paper Boi
Life as a Rapper Three studio albums in, it is apparent that social consciousness has been on Donald's mind for a while. By expressing his struggles of fitting in growing up in Georgia, he's been able to build a large fan base appealing to more than just typical hip hop fans.
Album cover for Awaken, My Love!
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Blackness Black culture and its appropriation in American society are reoccurring themes in Donald Glover's Work The two episodes that best exemplify this are titled ”Nobody Beats the Biebs” and “Juneteenth.” In the former, Paper Boi plays a charity basketball game alongside Justin Beiber, who is casted by a black man. This was deliberately done to highlight the immaturity and questionable behavior that Justin Beiber has displayed behind the veil of adopting black hip hop culture. An example of this Justin's use of the n word in his music. Furthermore, the episodes seems to make the claim that Justin Beiber would not be able to get away with the public displays of miscreant behavior if he were black. In the show after doing things like pissing in the corner of the locker room and getting in a fight on the basketball court, he makes a trite apology and bursts into a new pop song at the post game press conference while all the journalists sing along. In the episode “Juneteenth,” Earn and Vanessa attend a bourgeoisie dinner party at the home of an affluent white man married to a black woman. The title of the episode refers to abolition of slavery in Texas.
The host of the dinner party is a man who is overly sensitive to the plight of the black man in the United States, while his wife has disdain for the ghetto black community and kicks Earn and Vanessa out once she discovers Earn manages Paper Boi. Visitors to Maldives do not need to apply for a visa prearrival, regardless of their country of origin, provided they have a valid passport, proof of onward travel, and the money to be self-sufficient while in the country. Agriculture and manufacturing continue to play a lesser role in the economy, constrained by the limited availability of cultivable land and the shortage of domestic labour.
"Justin Beiber would not be able to get away with the public displays of miscreant behavior if he were black"
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ARTIST MAGAZINE
Gender Roles
Gender roles are the major theme in episodes such as “Value” and “B.A.N.” Donald Glover seems to channel some of the criticisms he has received as a hip-hop artist in real life (Childish Gambino), into the show. Childish Gambino is often criticized for being too soft, another way of saying not masculine enough, with his style of rap. This is in stark contrast with Paper Boi, who in one episode is characterized as the “last real hard street rapper” left. Donald Glover’s character Earn, is also “soft” in the show. One example of this is how in the first episode a white radio jockey openly uses the n word around him, but does not dare to do so around Brian. In episode seven, “B.A.N.”, Brian is doing a talk show interview when he is bombarded with questions in regards to him stating he would not be down to have sex with Caitlyn Jenner. The interviewer argues it’s a result of society being uncomfortable around transgender people as it threatens their masculinity, while Brian states that he is being asked unfair questions and that this act of being tough may be a result of America not caring about what happens to him as a black man in this country. Later in the episode, a black teenager is interviewed who believes that he is a white man in his thirties. When asked why, he says that he always felt he never got the respect he deserved. One day he “realizes” that he’s a middle aged white man and begins wearing Patagonia and playing golf. This part of the episode mirrors the 2015 Rachael Dolezal incident. Rachael was a white woman who self identifies herself as black and is president of her local NAACP chapter in Washington. She caught a lot of criticism over the fact that she selfidentified as black. Episode eight, Values, considers the gender roles for women in the black community. Vanessa, Earn's on and off girlfriend, meets up with an old friend over dinner. Their lives have taken very different paths. While Vanessa is going through a tumultuous relationship with Earn and has a child out of wedlock, her friend Jayde lives the WAG, wives and girlfriends of high profile athletes, lifestyle. Vanessa is clearly uncomfortable between the separate paths that their lives have taken. At one point Jayde goes as far as stating “we used to laugh at black girls in the situation that you’re in.” Jayde believes that as beautiful, cultured, and educated black women that the two of them should be getting their money’s worth sleeping around with rich men. This is opposite of the lifestyle the Vanessa has chosen, as she is making her living by teaching elementary school.
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That Power - Childish Gambino All these haters See you later All that I could do But you dont even feel me though I know you got that power That power Oh, oh oh So CG but a nigga stay real Though I'm fly I'm ill I'm running shit 3-points, field goal Rappers used to laugh like I tripped and fell Cause I don't stunt a gold cross like I Christian Bale Yeah, they starin' at me jealous cause I do shows bigger But your looks don't help, like an old gold digger Uncool, but lyrically I'm a stone cold killer So it's 400 blows to these Truffaut niggas Yeah, now that's the line of the century Niggas missed it, too busy They lyin' 'bout penitentiary Man, you ain't been there Nigga you been scared And I'm still living single like Synclaire Lovin' white dudes who call me white and then try to hate When I wasn’t white enough to use your pool when I was 8 Stone Mountain you raised me well I’m stared at by Confederates but hard as hell Tight jeans penny loafers, but I still drink a Bodine Staying on my me shit, but hated on by both sides I’m just a kid who blowing up with my father’s name And every black "you're not black enough" Is a white "you're all the same" DOOM Food like Rapp Snitch Knishes Cuz its oreos, twinkies, coconuts, delicious How many gold plaques you want inside your dining room? I said I want a full house They said, "You got it dude!" Holla, holla, holla, holla at yo boy Like yo dad when he's pissed off Got flow, I could make a cripple crip walk Niggas' breath stank, all they do is shit talk People want a real man, I made 'em wait this long Maybe if he bombs, he'll quit and keep actin' And save paper like your aunt does with McDonald napkins How'd it happen? Honesty did it See all of my competition at the bodies exhibit Yeah I bodied the limits and I get at them fakers Motherfuck if you hate it, cremated them haters So, my studio be a funeral Yeah, this is our year, oh you didn't know? Uh, yeah I'm killin' you, step inside the lion's den Man I'm hov if the 'O' was an 'I' instead On stage with my family in front of me I am what I am: everything I wanna be
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Donald Glover Donald Glover seems to have a lot to say in regards to conflicts with racial identity in his music, and we can see this paralleled with his character Earn, in Atlanta. A recurring theme referenced to in Childish Gambino’s debut studio album, Camp, is being too black for the white kids and too white for the black kids. This is a result of growing up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. This dichotomy is best represented by the following line from the song, That Power:
And every black "you're not black enough" Is a white "you're all the same"
Climb the mountains not so the world can see you, but so that you can see the world
This conflict between how you are supposed to act when white or black, and how you racially identify yourself regardless of skin color, is touched on upon in many episodes of Atlanta, whether its Justin Beiber casted as a black actor or the white business man performing Def Jam poetry at the dinner party. Earn also goes through this struggle as one hand he is an ivy league Princeton drop out that white people feel comfortable enough to say the n word around, while on the other his cousin is a drug dealer trying to make it off the streets as a rapper. In both the show and music, you get the feeling that Donald Glover has not felt accepted by the environment around him for who he is. Black, White, Latino, Asian, Native, LGBT, the list can go on forever, but regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, there are many people out there who lack that feeling of belonging. Reaching this wide variety of people is the reason why Donald is able to touch such a large fan base.