Childish Gambino, the consummate rapper-slash-actor

The list of rapper-slash-actors isn't, all in all, too impressive. Ice-T and Ice Cube have long since buried their glimmers of talent to mug it up on Law & Order: SVU and tacky children's movies, respectively. Will Smith largely abandoned his inexplicably popular rap career in favour of his film career, and to his credit he's done a good job of picking reasonably challenging roles in between the endless stream of MIB sequels. (By the way, I'm fully aware that I have Will2K of all things on my iPod, and frankly I don't feel the need to apologize for that.) Mos Def/Yaasin Bey is a performer of unusual subtlety in both areas, but really doesn't do enough of either rapping or acting to make me happy. So, you know, the field isn't terribly encouraging.

And the less we say about this situation, the better.

All of this is a long way of saying that when I got a Facebook message with a Childish Gambino song and the sentence "I know you enjoy Donald Glover," I was very, very skeptical. At the time (June '10) I did enjoy Donald Glover, but I only knew him as one half of Community's adorable and hilarious Troy and Abed. It would still be a while before I learned about his role at the 30 Rock writing table, and watched his recklessly silly work with Derrick Comedy, but I still thought, "Oh great, another rapping actor. Should be fun..."


In the interest of full disclosure, I wasn't initially blown away by what I heard ("I Be On That"). I don't think it was until the sick "Rolling in the Deep" remix that I really started taking the idea of Childish Gambino seriously. Still, the more of Glover's work I found, the more convinced I was that he should just focus on his acting and writing, and give up on the music. But after having seen him in two live performances, and as his music has matured and improved considerably, I think I'm revising my opinion.

The reason I call him a consummate rapper-slash actor is that he actually uses his training as an actor and comedian to inform his musical performances. Rather than taking on one persona - smug jokester, aloof materialist, faux bad-ass - you can see him acting through all of his lines for maximum impact. 



He winces while recalling an awkward memory, scoffs at his own attempts to make himself sound cooler, and gets angry at hypothetical haters. He controls and displays his vulnerability with just marvelous skill. In some cases it doesn't entirely work, e.g. when he claims that nobody wants to admit they like him (??). But he fucking nails the roles of a bitter ex and a boastful upstart in a way that more than makes up for his shaky Drake impression.


As his acting skills have strengthened and developed, so have his musical and performance skills. It's actually been a delight to watch that happen over the past year, similar to how it's been to see Ryan Gosling and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's careers develop after having fallen in love with them at the age of 7. And I'm pretty excited to see what he does next, whether it's as Donald Glover the actor or Childish Gambino the rapper.