Editor’s Note: In an effort to help our OA community stay sane during this extended break, the Olivian will offer an extensive guide of what to watch, listen to, read, and eat. These posts will be written by members of the OA community. If you are interested in sharing ideas for passing the time, email rschussler@easton.k12.ma.us. Stay safe. Stay sane.
Donald Glover, actor, director, singer, rapper, writer, producer, modern-day renaissance man, has released his self-proclaimed final album under the pseudonym, Childish Gambino. 3.15.20 is a loaded album that has a lot going on behind the scenes and the Donald Glover fanbase is going crazy over it. His career started with numerous mixtapes until his eventual studio albums, Camp, Because The Internet, Awaken My Love, and now 3.15.20. He found a majority of his early success from his early hip-hop music and switched everything upon the release of Awake My Love which leans towards Soul, Funk, and R&B. 3.15.20 continues this trend but in a separate direction as a majority of this album consists of very experimental beats and vocals across a single song to which the separate “songs” are titled their appropriate time-stamps for the duration of a continuous listen. Time and Algorhythm are two exceptions to this.
This album had a lot of hype coming to it as this is the first studio album we’ve received from Glover since his 2016 release of Awaken My Love, of course, he released the sensational This is America in 2018 which surprisingly did not feature on this album. However, another song from his 2018 EP, Summer Pack, was featured on 3.15.20, Feels Like Summer, now titled, 42.26. A week prior to the official release of this album the website Donald Glover Presents was streaming the entire album in its full length which is how fans believe Glover wished the album to be experienced but due to his label, RCA, requiring him to release an album under his stage name Childish Gambino, it is separated into multiple timestamped songs. This is further confirmed by the fact that the album appeared twice on most music streaming platforms under different names, Childish Gambino, and Donald Glover, and are separated into singles and combined into one song respectively, this was later removed a few days after the release.
The rollout of this album has left many fans wondering what’s next for Donald Glover as the Donald Glover Presents website initially featured this artwork while it streamed the album:
Finally, on release night of the album after the countdown, a note was attached to the website while the album streamed. This was later taken down and replaced by a white screen that simply states “Donald Glover Presents” with a link to stream the album. The note said this:
This note has left many fans wondering whether or not this is actually going to be the last album in a similar way that Frank Ocean made his “last album”. In the last paragraph of the note, he describes that there is a “first book” which could be a moniker for the album as a lot of the album’s themes revolve around one’s self in the world. Furthermore, there is an arrow underneath the note indicating that there is more to come.
Overall this album was very hard to digest throughout the first listen and many people I’ve discussed this with agree that you may need to stop on your first listen but, in my experience the more time you give this album the more it reveals itself to you and grows on you to become one of Donald Glover’s greatest projects and a high contender for a top album this year already.