This article was written during the spring quarter when SCAD Radio wasn’t able to post regularly.
Donald Glover, the artist formally known as Childish Gambino, has dropped a new album—and it’s beautifully minimalist.
On March 15, 2020, the modern renaissance man teased the album with a loop on the website donaldgloverpresents.com, only to take down the music 12 hours later. A week later, the album was released in full to streaming services worldwide under the name 3.15.20.
At first look, the album might seem amateur—or even bootleg—in presentation. The cover is a simple white square, lacking even an artist accreditation or title, making it officially even more plain than the cover of The Beatles’ eponymous white album. All but two of the tracks are unnamed (“Algorhythm” and “Time”), instead being listed simply as their timestamp (“0.00” is the first, “24.19”is 24 minutes and 19 seconds in, and so on). And the title is, of course, just the date the album was first teased, leading many to identify it rather as Donald Glover Presents.
The music, however, is anything but boring. Past the nondescript façade of its packaging, 3.15.20 offers 12 emotionally charged and passionate tracks showing off Glover’s impressive range. Stylistically, this album could be adequately described as a sequel to his 2016 funk powerhouse “Awaken, My Love!”, overall focusing more on bass, synth, and soothing vocals than the harder-hitting hip-hop treatment of Camp and Because The Internet.
Though the album is much more powerful than the sum of its parts, a few tracks deserve individual mention. The second track on the album, “Algorhythm”, features heavily synthesized beats and stylistic use of voice modulation that makes it feel ripped right out of “II. Earth: The Oldest Computer (The Last Night)”. “12.38”, or “Psilocybin” (as I would name it), includes phenomenal appearances from fellow Atlanta native 21 Savage, R&B artist Kadhja Bonet, and vocalist Atia “Ink” Boggs. Savage’s verse touches on police brutality and the repercussions of success, and somehow still flows seamlessly with Gambino’s earlier verse about tripping on shrooms. Additionally, Glover’s hit “Feels Like Summer” is featured as “42.26”, with no changes other than an added 15 second intro. This song, originally part of the Summer Pack EP, delivers ever-pertinent lines on mankind moving too fast and destroying the world in its wake.
More than any other, however, “47.48” deserves mention. The song opens with a few synth notes reminiscent of the opening to “Baby Boy” and seems to follow a similar theme. As in “Baby Boy”, Glover talks to his son Legend through the lyrics. The twist? Four years later, Legend is old enough to respond, and he does. The outro consists of a low, ethereal backing track as father and son discuss what they love. Though it is not the last song on the album, “47.48” feels like a finale to both the album and the Childish Gambino story that started years ago with mixtapes like Sick Boi and Culdesac. In 2018, Glover had his second son. Later that year, his own father passed away, and in a few months Glover announced he would be retiring the name Childish Gambino.
It seems, then, that Donald Glover’s minimalist design is neither laziness nor accident. Rather, 3.15.20 represents a blank slate upon which Glover can begin the next chapter of his life. Though Childish Gambino is perhaps my favorite artist this side of Y2K, it would be selfish for me to ask more of him past this album. It is time for him to stand aside and allow Donald Glover to shine—as a writer, as an actor, and as a father.
