Review Summary: Only gotta drive for the moment.
In recent years, Childish Gambino fans have been taxed with the task of sifting through the multi-faceted and varying moods and personalities of Donald Glover. From his first forays into rap with the mixtape ‘Sick Boi’, we witnessed a fledgling Gambino, shamelessly imitating mixtape Lil’ Wayne, and dispensing mildly amusing punch lines one after another. From then until now, we’ve seen every possible iteration within the spectrum of the Internet rapper within Childish Gambino’s discography. From the genre-bending experiments seen in EP, Culdesac, and the I Am Just A Rapper installments, to the attempts to define his personal struggles within Camp, to the materialistic braggadocio of Royalty, the most consistent element of Gambino’s musical career has been his constant search for an identity.
Because the Internet lies somewhere between all of these identities, and yet stands aside in its own space. On this album, Childish Gambino has inserted himself within the vein of rappers and singers like Drake, The Weeknd, and Frank Ocean, painting himself as a shadowy, depressed, bitter person who has attained fame but is seeking self-worth, happiness, and validation. Because the Internet is an effort of self-exploration, self-discovery, and social commentary that takes us through the tumultuous processes of Donald Glover’s mind.
The album is sonically divided into two halves, a comparatively light-hearted first half, and a darker, riskier second half. In the first half of this album, he delivers bars packed with dense internal rhyme schemes and rapid fire flows. Childish Gambino has always excelled with creating catchy hooks and experiences, an ability that shines in early album cuts like Worldstar, Telegraph Ave. and 3005. There are also several instances where Gambino’s attempts at singing actually create listenable and admittedly good experiences that are a far cry from his warbling falsettos that appear on other releases (So Fly, All the Shine).
The second half is where this album falls off, finding Childish Gambino falling into familiar traps. The noisy, glitch underbelly of Internet opens with cuts ‘The Party’ and ‘No Exit’, which begin Donald’s dark hedonistic descent into madness. They both suffer from the same issue of annoying falsetto hooks that add nothing to the integrity of the song. There’s also a significant deal of deadpan deliveries (Zealots) that are meant to come off as intentionally cold and unfeeling, but only serve to create unmemorable performances.
There’s also a significant amount of swagger jacking. Telegraph Ave., while good, is a copycat Drake song, with the melody lifted straight from 2011’s ‘I’m On One (so you can stop wondering why it’s so darn familiar). Flight of the Navigator attempts some of the same non-sequitur vagaries of Frank Ocean’s writing, and Zealots Of Stockholm descends into Death Grips/Clipping (Midcity, anyone?) like noise-hop halfway through the track. The penultimate song, Earth, The Oldest Computer is a frankly embarrassing attempt to emulate the poppy sounds of Azealia Banks. And while I very much understand that this emulation is intentional, as Banks is featured on the track alongside Gambino, the cut could have been more skillfully grafted into the album.
Let me step away from the conversation at hand to say that the production on Because the Internet is immaculate. Despite the carbon-copy cuts, and at times, questionable musical choices, Gambino masterfully handles every element with grace and maturity (does anyone else think that Flying Lotus might have mixed this?). I was very happy to learn that Childish Gambino still handled the majority of production; he is and will be a force to be reckoned with instrumentally. The only thing that bothered me instrumentally was again, originality. There’s a difference between staying current and chasing trends, and at times, the production feels like the latter. And again, that’s not to belittle the grandiosity of the production, but originality is still an issue.
When I heard Camp, I loved the lyricism but was taken aback by the shameless MBDTF appropriation in the production (if I get the time, or anyone wants to read, I have to go in on how significant the copying is; I don’t think anyone online has given the production on Camp the thrashing it deserves). When I heard Royalty, I was fine with the production but was concerned with the brazen swag raps throughout. I was hoping that with the next release I would get something that reconciled the two previous releases, something lyrically personal and musically original.
But what I feel we received instead is just chasing the tail end of a new wave of production style as well as a Drake/Weeknd-like persona that was being copycatted by other of Gambino’s rap/R&B cohorts. And I end up searching for the same Childish Gambino that I was searching for before this album and at the beginning of this review. A Gambino that was secure. A Gambino that has grown into his own.
But maybe (definitely) that’s not the point of Childish Gambino’s (Donald Glover’s) music. Maybe the objective is to take us through this turbulent emotional roller coaster, giving an accurate picture of where he is at all times. Gambino is still searching for his identity, which is very much apparent. For his health and safety, part of me prays he finds it, and soon. But for the ride- and for the moment- part of me hopes that he never does.
