Donald Glover is set to have another excellent year.
Once his second season of Atlanta wraps up on FX, he’ll hit the road performing as Childish Gambino, with Rae Sremmurd to open. Glover has been putting out music as Childish Gambino for nearly a decade now, going from NYU dorm rooms to weekend performances in the desert to the Grammys. Along the way, his music has shifted. What started as joke-y, sample-heavy rap made for a very specific time on the internet quickly became earnest, well-produced missives from a man who'd found a devoted audience. Then, in 2016, he changed tack, becoming a funk-indebted pop star—which is partly why his 2018 is going to be so massive. With his frequent collaborator (and Community and Black Panther composer) Ludwig Göransson, Glover has blended pop, hip-hop, R&B, funk, and rock into new concoctions each time he hits a recording booth. He is due to release a new album this year, and has intimated it will be his last under the moniker of Childish Gambino. Here are his best songs thus far.
15. "Zealots of Stockholm"
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No one will ever accuse Childish Gambino of lacking ambition. This Because The Internet cut cycles through three different movements in less than five minutes. Glover bookends the track with thoughts of parents, mortality, and the futility of marriage like a man on his deathbed, flashing back to a hookup in Stockholm over a skeletal buzz. Kilo Kish chimes in as the other side of the one night stand, repeating the refrain, “Is it real ’cause you’re online?”
It’s not quite a millennial “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but I bet that’s what Glover was aiming for. —Jack Riedy
14. "Yaphet Kotto"
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“Yaphet Kotto” is Glover’s version of Kendrick Lamar’s “Westside, Right On Time,” a non-album advance single that sums up an upcoming project over a simple soulful beat. Named after the actor best known for Alien and Live and Let Die, the track begins with Glover turning criticisms of his raps into evidence of his polymathic tendencies. “Worst rapper to ever spit on an open mic/ Worst rapper to ever get on so many likes.” Unlike some of his weaker verses, he doesn’t linger on the critiques and is therefore able to transcend them, touching on psychedelic drugs, embarrassing tour stories, viral video references, industry cosigns, police brutality, and more in the song’s brief runtime. It’s a handy summary of Because The Internet as a result. —Jack Riedy
13. "Pop Thieves (Make It Feel Good)"
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If there was ever any doubt that Donald Glover could become a genuine pop star, it wasn't settled by his actual first chart hit, "Redbone," but on Kauai, his 2014 EP that saw him stretching his straightforward songwriting skills. "Pop Thieves" is a deft exercise in catchiness—it's essentially a series of hooks—over an aggressively tropical beat (the inclusion of seagull squawking is the song's one misstep). It's a song that belongs on repeat, with a simple refrain—"make you feel good"—that proves hard to get out of your head. —Brendan Klinkenberg
12. "American Royalty" f/ RZA & Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
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The first half of this song is the RZA bugging out over a dramatic Hypnotic Brass Ensemble sample. That should be all I need to tell you. This is how he describes smoking: “This Oxycontin carbon monox' and toxic concoction collapse your brain cells/ They swell from lack of oxygen.” It’s dumb and awe-inspiring, something like a good superhero movie. Glover holds his own when he closes the track, though it helps that the beat switches to a chilly synth groove. With RZA’s “Go” echoing throughout, Gambino brags about custom trousers with deep pockets. Wu-Tang forever. —Jack Riedy
11. "So Fly"
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“So Fly” is a song for faking maturity, like a dorm room guitarist that yearns to be profound. The narrator can’t rave about his crush without bringing up his own success on TV, but Glover is still able to capture the beginning of infatuation, feeling something but unwilling to say more than “you’re the bestest” and "you're so fly to me." Less commitment that way. The song begins as layers of Glover’s voice supporting itself until it blooms into echoing strings and drums over the same four chords. It’s a warm refuge in the middle of Culdesac. —Jack Riedy
10. "Heartbeat"
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The same year Drake posed sad with his goblets, Gambino was playing petulant about a part-time lover. Glover sings that he can’t sleep whenever this woman is around, and the frantic verses show that this lovesick cliché isn’t a good sign. They’re something between best friends, fucking, and nothing. The star of the song is its synthline, a post-Justice and pre-Chainsmokers buzzsaw that flares up like the narrator’s feelings. —Jack Riedy
9. "One Up" f/ Steve G. Lover
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Once, so hyped up by this trap beat while driving, I misjudged a turn and plowed my car into a pole in the parking garage of my local public library. You could call it a car crash, but that would be an exaggeration, and that’s what “One Up” is about. Donald's brother (and fellow Atlanta writer) Stephen Glover stunts in the first verse. He’s “fresh from the haircut down to the shoestrings,” glancing in the rearview as he cruises through the pocket. Gambino brags too, but at times he sounds genuinely menacing, toeing the line where wealth bleeds into violent abandon when he brags about “killing paper.” Don’t drive under the influence. —Jack Riedy
8. "Sunrise"
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Childish Gambino's first full album, Camp, finishes with a monologue-heavy track that seems cribbed directly from College Dropout's "Last Call." It would be a stronger album if it ended on this track, a triumphant distillation of everything that Glover was attempting and pulling off back in 2011. The production is immaculate, a sea of synths and sampled vocals, and has the kind of lines that Glover was known for—"Terry Gross on the mic, I'm the talk of the nation"—that make you smile instead of cringe. It's easy to see the appeal. —Brendan Klinkenberg
7. "Me And Your Mama"
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Awaken, My Love! was, to put it lightly, a shift for Childish Gambino. Though Glover had long been experimenting with the limits of the moniker, expanding what the album could be on projects like Because The Internet, his 2016 LP was something else entirely. "Me And Your Mama" was the first indication of how far he could take it. The first half of the song is calm and deliberate, lulling you into a false sense of security before Glover's arrival. And then he shows up. "Me and Your Mama" is his most charismatic vocal performance to date, a James Brown-esque excorcism that revealed a completely new side of the already multi-faceted artist. —Brendan Klinkenberg
6. "The Worst Guys" f/ Chance The Rapper
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This song feels like spending a Saturday stoned with friends in an expensive house, and that’s almost certainly how it was created. Gambino rhymes about the perks of his yuppie lifestyle, reminding us that “when I ball, I’ma ball King James.” Chance The Rapper, fresh off of Acid Rap, sings the one line hook with all his considerable charisma. In the video, Glover, Chance, and their friends smoke blunts while floating through the tide on surfboards. The key change guitar solo lifts you up just like a wave. —Jack Riedy
5. "Candler Road"
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Named after a Decatur street, "Candler Road" is a distillation of what Gambino's restless energy is capable of at its best. The first half of the song is a trap-indebted imitation of his Atlanta contemporaries, before evolving into something else entirely. The stuttering hi-hats give way to washed out synths and stream-of-consciousness melodizing, then that combination of boasting and relentless self-examination that Gambino can never seem to stay away from. It's a winning combination here. —Brendan Klinkenberg
4. "Do Ya Like"
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The bars on this Culdesac highlight are goofy but endearing. Lines like, “I’m in love with you, but this is not tennis" or "Baby stay stacked like she’s bad at Tetris” certainly aren’t cool, but they work in this context. The hook is a come-on that spills over into pure bubblegum nonsense. Glover and his co-producer Ludwig Göransson slice four bars of soul out of an early Adele track, and are smart enough to get out of its way. 808 bass and a bounce beat are enough for Gambino to soar over. —Jack Riedy
3. "Redbone"
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The centerpiece of Glover’s most recent album is a neo-funk gem, and supremely sensual. It’s a sexual song too, pulsing with Glover’s moaning falsetto. But it's the gritty bass guitar riff that hits every sense. It’s no surprise “Redbone” was eventually EQed into sounding like it was playing in every kind of room imaginable—it works in any and every context. The taunting melody in the verses feels like sickly neon shades, and the beat is wet with sweat from paranoia and too much junk food. It’s a song as sensory overload, being unable to look up from the horror on a screen, even as you slow dance. —Jack Riedy
2. "Sober"
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“If you let it shine, you can free your mind.” On this track from Kauai, Glover leaves his skepticism on the ground and ascends into bliss. Now that he’s with someone new, “I’ll never be sober, I couldn’t believe, but now I’m so high.” The love fills his chest like lungs inflating with smoke. The unquantized drums struggle to stay in time, like someone trying to seem sober as they fumble for their wallet at the gas station cash register. Instead it's the sprightly keys that keep time, and guitar lines thread in between the eighth notes. The bass drop is heavy, and Glover is as convincing as ever as the song's centerpiece. Who would ever want to come down from this? —Jack Riedy
1. "3005"
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“3005” is Childish Gambino's best song. It’s the best example of all his myriad talents: singing, rapping, producing. On his early tracks, Gambino practically exhaled into the mic, trying to show off how hard he was working. Here, he spits the best rhymes of his career and it sounds like he’s barely trying. He’s nonchalant as he lurches into double-time for “Mi casa su casa, got it stripping like Gaza/ Got so high off volcanoes, now the flow be so lava.” The beat’s sparkly synths subside on the verse, building up tension to explode on the chorus. There’s a beat drop perfect for festival tents or car stereos. The cherry on top is a chorus catchy enough to stick your head for another millenium or so. —Jack Riedy
