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“Are we going to die?” asks a child’s voice. “Not tonight,” it replies. The child is Legend Glover, seven years old, son of a multi-actor in showbiz Donald GloverThe answer is that of his father.
This exchange is the very first sound we hear on Bando Stone and the New Worldthe fifth full-length album from Glover’s musical project under the name Childish Gambino. And yet the album is a kind of death: Glover has framed Announcement stone as a farewell, the last record released under what he describes as the Gambino “persona.” At 40, the Atlanta the star is done being childish.
Announcement stone is not so much adult as overgrown, like a verdant but unruly garden. It’s an album of enormous scope, an hour-long, 17-track odyssey that, we’re told, also serves as the soundtrack to an upcoming musical of the same name. The range of musical styles and influences here is daunting. There are shades of Yeezus In the hard electronics of the album opener, “H3@RT$ W3RE M3NT TO F7¥,” his flow on the verses of “Survive”—a winning pop-rap of smooth harmonies and meandering bass lines—also sounds distinctly Kanye-esque. Then, suddenly, it feels like you’re listening to a completely different artist: on the breezy, utterly infectious pop track “Real Love,” or on “In the Night,” one of two singles from the Afrobeat-infused album that features Amaarae and Jorja Smith.
Glover has a rather unique reputation in the music world. While he is undoubtedly one of the most famous film actors to ever make the leap, his early work has left a somewhat mixed legacy. Camphis 2011 debut album, is known for its obnoxious, oozing one-liners—and its many risqué remarks about Asian women. But his sound has changed a lot over the years, and occasionally he’s shown himself capable of something original and enduring: the elastic and unique “Redbone,” from the funkadelic adventure “Wake up, my love”or the combative and politically charged “This is America,” which spawned one of the most talked-about music videos of recent years.
There is nothing on Announcement stone It’s captivating enough to supplant either of those tracks at the top of Glover’s musical canon. But there are plenty of strong ones: the smooth, jazzy “No Excuses,” for example, or “Running Around (feat. Fousheé),” a triumphantly catchy number that displays a surprising aptitude for Sam Fender-esque indie-pop choruses. Camp Defenders will also appreciate the vestiges of Glover’s penchant for wackier wordplay: “I make bills like Eilish,” Glover raps on “Talk My S***”; on “Survive,” he jokes that he’s “with my son, watching Blue like we’re both Crip.”
Glover said he adapted the sound of Announcement stone Looking ahead to his upcoming stadium tour, he said, “For this album, I really wanted to be able to play big venues and have big songs that fill those venues.” This is particularly evident on songs like “A Place Where Love Goes” and “Lithonia,” a truly anthemic pop-rock ballad. The album’s production is sublime throughout, drawing on a roster of stellar technicians including Ludwig Goranson, Max Martin, Steve Lacy and Glover himself. It also features a handful of featured artists, including Yeat, Flo Milli and, in a track conceptually reminiscent of Eminem’s “My Dad’s Gone Crazy,” his son Legend, who contributes a few fitting bars on “Can You Feel Me.”
Announcement stonesprawling and maximalist, will do little to dispel the notion that Glover is a serious man. artist. We should not forget, for example, the 2021 naval interview he gave conducted with himself as his own interviewer“I know I have an ego as big as Lake Tahoe,” he admits on “Dadvocate.” But the interesting thing about Glover is that even though he has big ideas about his own art, he often does it—in Atlantaor in his best musical recordings, is up to par. Announcement stone It may be the work of a man who is a drug addict himself. But chances are you will end up getting into drugs too.