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.