By now, you’ve probably heard of Donald Glover. He’s a Grammy-nominated multi-hyphenate who has dominated the last decade in film, television, and music. He’s been in some of the biggest movies of the last few years, including Solo and the live-action remake of The Lion King, created one of the biggest hit TV shows in recent memory, Atlanta, and somehow found time to break the internet under his musical stage name, Childish Gambino.
On March 22nd, 2020 he released his fourth studio album, 3.15.20. The surprise release has fans everywhere simultaneously dancing and scratching their heads. Here are my theories about the mysterious nature of the new Gambino project.
A Long-Awaited Release
Childish Gambino’s last studio album, Awaken, My Love! came in late 2016. Then, after a year and a half of near radio-silence, musically speaking, Gambino dropped one of the hottest music videos of the decade in May 2018. “This Is America” signaled a grand reemergence and led to fans everywhere sniffing around for a new album. He followed that up in July 2018 when he released Summer Pack – EP which included the tracks “Summertime Magic” and “Feels Like Summer”. Between the three songs, a new album appeared to be imminent.
The album cover for Gambino’s 2018 release, Summer Pack – EP.
However, Gambino dove back into the shadows and left us guessing for over a year. This music-less period likely had much to do with his cinematic ventures and position as a new father. That, or you could say he was simply taking his sweet time. After much waiting and rampant speculation, it’s finally here. The release was sudden and the rollout was peculiar, though warmly greeted by fans who had been waiting almost three and a half years.
We all knew that Gambino’s next project would likely be genre-bending and somewhat experimental. Awaken, My Love! had signaled the prior while “This Is America” and Summer Pack – EP intimated the latter. Even with those projects setting the stage, none of us could have expected what he gave us with 3.15.20.
3.15.20 Is Very, Very Mysterious
3.15.20 is beautiful and jubilant in certain areas then haunting and borderline indecipherable in others. I’m not going to attempt to put a genre label on 3.15.20. That would be doing it a disservice. However, the way it blends various genres and then stitches itself together with exceedingly experimental transitions makes the album, well, unique.