#Night call childish gambino free#

It's a sweet sendoff to the record that brought love and hate together into one soulful experience.Īwaken, My Love! is a departure of sound, but a solidification of conviction. That lesson is told in the hook: ' Keep all your dreams, keep standing tall / If you are strong you cannot fall / There is a voice inside us all / So smile when you can.' The somber tone of the first half is then brought up to something more upbeat and celebratory, the same lyrics repeating but with more appreciation. It begins quietly with bass and guitar, Childish Gambino coming in to sing about a lesson his father taught him when he was young. 'Stand Tall' has two distinct parts to it. It all ends with ' Stand Tall.' The sweet instrumental ' The Night Me and Your Mama Met' prefaced the track, sweet strummed guitar that ends each bar with a quick punch of sweet wah.

The song's soulful guitar riffs ring with purpose, the vocals this time showing that they have significance amongst the layers of the song. See ' Boogieman,' where the refrain barks ' With a gun in your hand, I'm the boogieman / I'm gonna come and get you' as sung by a blues choir. There are other songs that ring with more urgency. The song's groovy bassline makes the song's vibe feel more significant than the words, shadowing the meaning in the best way possible. ' Have Some Love' begins with a gospel choir soulfully chanting ' Have a word for your brother / Have some time for one another / Really love one another / It's so hard to find,' Glover's vocals coming in afterwards, sounding paranoid and distraught. Several songs on the record have this call-to-arms vibe, perhaps understated as a result of the infectious funk. On Awaken, My Love!, when he's not singing about love, he's making a statement about life as a black man. ' Terrified' follows up, immediately taking the tone back to a dark one as things start falling apart when the couple encounters several hardships.Īny fan of Childish Gambino will know that he is always making a statement. It's simply a fun song - it's not serious by any means, flowing with groove and oozing with sweetness. The song has a distinct accent on it, the instrumental too sounding different from the rest. She then gets in trouble and despite his initial distaste, the narrator too wants to go there to have a good time.

#Night call childish gambino free#

The poppier, rawer ' California' follows up on love, Glover criticizing a girl who wants to life a free and fun life in California. The first verse chants, ' They wanna see us fallin' apart! / You know that I love you! / So let me into your heart,' Glover begging his lover to stay with him and open up to him despite the world being against them. The lyrics tell the tale of how difficult love can be, and how those against it encumber those who have fallen victim to it. Lead single ' Me and Your Mama' opens the record, its spiraling Radiohead synths adding a modern touch to the old-fashioned, blues rock instrumental the song has. There's not really one specific topic that the album clings to, but each song has something to say. The theme of love and life occurs in each and every song separately, though. Other song titles also reference 'your mama' and ' Baby Boy,' further giving credence to this theme. The title itself references a birth that tense but joyous wait for your newborn child to open their eyes or to cry for the first time. From an overarching view, this album is for Gambino's son. Awaken, My Love! is an album about love, being served in many different forms. This is true thematically and stylistically. This record is a new chapter in the story of Donald Glover. What's best about the record, perhaps, is that it is its own entity and sound. If anything, it's closer to his Kauai EP.

It's not Because The Internet, nor is it Camp. This was the direction that he looked to be traveling in, though. Awaken, My Love is more of a funk and soul record than it is hip-hop (Glover's host genre), so it is a departure. It's not what you may have expected from Childish Gambino, but at the same time it still feels intrinsically like his own record. There's not much that could've pre-empted you for this record. Donald Glover announced his third record Awaken, My Love! at the beginning of November, and now it's out and it is quite the surprise. There's no one quite as hot in the hip-hop world right now as Childish Gambino is.