DONALD GLOVER

10 Takeaways From Donald Glover’s Interview With Himself

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Image via Getty/Lionel Hahn

  • He models his career after Willy Wonka

  • Donald’s not interested in “cancel culture,” recorded a feature that may be “too controversial” to release

  • Glover has thoughts on Dr. Umar Johnson’s comment about relationship with mother of his child

  • He addressed Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s exit from ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ series

  • He knows why people connect with Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle

  • Childish Gambino’s ‘Camp’ hasn’t led to regrets despite the critical response

  • Donald likes ‘Dave’ but doesn’t appreciate comparisons to ‘Atlanta’

  • Glover enjoys ‘Euphoria,’ jokes Zendaya should “leave Sam [Levinson] to come to Death Row”

  • His biggest fear is losing his mother

  • The ‘Atlanta’ creator still believes ‘The Sopranos’ is only show as good as his

Donald Glover Explains How He Would Make ‘Dave’ More Like ‘Atlanta’

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Donald Glover’s show Atlanta gets compared to Lil Dicky’s show Dave a lot. Presumably, it’s because they were both created by rappers who also star in them and because they share a network, FX. Even this very website sorta compared them in a feature about how they depict the weird corners of the rap game in a way that hasn’t been seen before in mainstream media. Glover has said in the past that he doesn’t much like those comparisons, but that didn’t stop him from making one himself in a new interview.

Intriguingly enough, he had all the leeway in the world not to answer the question — or even ask it — since the conversation took place in Interview magazine with Donald interviewing himself. But maybe it’s just been on his mind. He winds up explaining what his (ahem) beef is with Dicky’s show, and how he believes it could be a more honest, “organic” depiction of Dicky’s experience in the rap game — basically, by making it more like Atlanta.

In some recent tweets of yours you reference Dave.

Yeah.

Do you dislike that show?

No! I like that show. But it does bother me when Atlanta’s compared to it.

Why?

You have to think of it like food.

You mean it’s a different flavor.

No. Although I do feel like the flavor is artificial in some sense. The organic show should be about a white rapper who’s more successful than his Black peers from the jump. Because he’s more accessible. But what he actually wants is to be part of the culture, but his success keeps him from that and a lot of his Black peers and friends resent him for it but also feel like they have to fuck with him because it’s good for them. That’s the internal struggle I see. Anyway.

That’s the Donald version of Dave.

Yeah. It’s sadder. What are you gonna do?

Donald goes on to clarify that he doesn’t technically think that Dave should be his version of the show, aptly comparing the two shows to different foods. He also admits that he “can be a snob” but disagrees with assessments that he’s “pretentious.” “Anthony Bourdain wasn’t pretentious,” he says. “But he definitely knew the difference between a dry-aged wagyu and a smash burger. Neither is better or worse than the other. They’re just different experiences. And I wouldn’t want to have either every day.”

Donald Glover Discusses The Possibility Of New Childish Gambino Music On ‘Kimmel’

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Donald Glover has kept busy with Atlanta and various other acting endeavors in recent years, and all the while, Childish Gambino fans have been wanting more new music. Glover’s latest album was 2020’s 3.15.20 and now he tells Jimmy Kimmel he’s been working on new music since then.

Towards the end of the conversation, Kimmel asked Glover if he was working on a new Childish Gambino album. After pausing for applause, Glover replied, “Uh, no,” before quickly indicating he was joking. He continued, “I’m making a lot of music. I really love doing it. I’ve made a bunch of it. It’s just really about how to experience it at this point.”

Glover didn’t specifically say he was making music to be released under the Childish Gambino name, which is noteworthy given his recent history: He suggested on multiple occasions he would be retiring the moniker but has since indicated he may not be finished with Childish Gambino after all.

Meanwhile, he also noted that his process of making music has changed since becoming a father, saying:

“It used to just flow, but now I have kids. Nothing flows anymore. […] Nothing’s as easy as it used to be. So I do block off time now because I’m like, ‘Oh, I want to be here for them at this time, and I want to make sure I see his game, and I want to make…’ So that takes a lot of scheduling. But I have this kind of farm, I call it, where it’s like an art farm, where I just like… when I go there, then I get to be as ADD as I want.”

Watch the full interview above.

Things Get A Bit Intense In The ‘Atlanta’ Season 3 Trailer

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The long wait is almost over: FX has released the trailer for the third (but not final) season of Atlanta. You can watch it above.

The new season takes place almost entirely overseas, where Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) is joined by Earn (Donald Glover), Darius (LaKeith Stanfield), and Van (Zazie Beetz) “in the midst of a successful European tour,” according to the plot description. The foursome “navigates their new surroundings as outsiders, and struggle to adjust to the newfound success they had aspired to.” (The cast also faced racial profiling while filming, which they laughed off.)

“You’re not worried about, y’know, what the streets think?” Earn asks Paper Boi while he’s getting fitted for a custom outfit. “The streets?!” he replies as the trailer cuts to a different scene where a random woman steals the hat off his head. Later, Darius suggests to Earn that they should get going because things are “getting a bit… intense.”

The last new episode of Atlanta was in May 2018 (!), but the cast “always stayed in touch,” Tyree Henry told James Corden. “Like nonstop, we check in on one another. But to finally be back together, and to be back in the shoes of these characters, it just completely — it’s like a weird Twilight Zone episode, because you’re like like, ‘Do I still remember what Alfred went through?’ You’re just finding it out together.”

Atlanta returns on March 24.

Donald Glover Reveals The ‘Extremely Petty’ Reason That Pushed Him To Make ‘Awaken, My Love!’

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After the success of his second album Because The Internet, Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, reached new heights in 2016 with the release of his third album Awaken, My Love! The project was a large shift in the sound that was present on Because The Internet, as Glover had songs that featured him singing as opposed to rapping along with production that combined psychedelic soul, funk, and R&B. As of today, Awaken, My Love! is Glover’s most successful album and during a recent appearance on LeBron James’ HBO show The Shop, he explained what inspired him to create the album.

“Did you ever tap into something that is in you that you feel is kind of bad to win?” Childish Gambino asked the group that included Lebron and Abbott Elementary creator Quinta Brunson. “Because I struggle with that. I am naturally petty. Like, extremely petty” He revealed that he made Awaken, My Love! to prove an unnamed critic wrong. “Awaken, My Love was literally because somebody said, ‘Oh, he can’t make a hit.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, not only will I make a hit, I won’t make a single video for it.’”

After its release in December 2016, Awaken, My Love became his highest-charting release after it debuted at No. 5 on the albums chart. The project also birthed Glover’s most successful single with “Redbone” which peaked at No. 12 on the singles chart and is currently 5X Platinum.

You can view the clip from the upcoming episode above. The full episode airs on March 4 at 9 am PST exclusively on UNINTERRUPTED’s YouTube channel.

Donald Glover Says The Cast And Crew Of ‘Atlanta’ Laughed At The Racial Profiling They Experienced In London

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In a little over a month, the long-awaited third season of Donald Glover’s Atlanta will premiere on FX, almost four years since the last season aired. Ahead of the new episodes, which are predominantly set in London, Stephen Glover, Donald’s brother, recalled that the cast and crew of the show were racially profiled while shooting scenes in London. One of the harassers claimed the group was carrying guns with them. But now Donald has clarified what he meant.

“He’s making a reference that we all have hammers, and we can just break into this place, which we kind of ignored,” Donald said during a TCA press tour. Atlanta co-writer Stefani Robinson added, “It was so insulting but not insulting at the same time because it took us five minutes to fully understand.” Naturally, the story made its way around social media, but according to Donald, the cast and crew of Atlanta didn’t take the situation as seriously as everyone else did. “That ‘racially abused’ headline about us is lame,” Donald wrote in a tweet. “The story is tru. but we were all laughin tellin it.”

Donald’s clarification comes after it was confirmed that Atlanta would come to an end after its fourth season. The news was shared by FX chairman John Landgraf, who said that the third and fourth seasons of Atlanta have already been shot.

The Bizarre ‘Atlanta’ Season 3 Teaser Will Make You Feel So Fresh, So Clean, So Happy ‘Atlanta’ Is Almost Back

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The most recent episode of FX’s brilliant comedy Atlanta aired in May 2018. It was a different time: Drake had the number one song in the country, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was dominating the box office, and the world was terrible.

OK, maybe things haven’t changed that much, but it does feel like season two happened a lifetime ago. Do you remember what happened in the season two finale? I didn’t until looking it up (it involves a gun, a backpack, and Paper Boi telling Earn, “You my family”), and then I remembered why Atlanta was Uproxx‘s best show of 2018.

Thankfully, after a nearly four-year break, Atlanta is coming back in March. Ahead of the premiere, FX released a new teaser for season three that has Earn (Donald Glover), Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), Darius (LaKeith Stanfield), and Van (Zazie Beetz) stuck in a nightmare of capitalism. Over what sounds like a corny cover of “So Fresh, So Clean” by ATL legends Outkast, Paper Boi says, “These products scare me.” Thumbs up.

Here’s more:

Taking place almost entirely in Europe, season three finds “Earn” (Donald Glover), “Alfred / Paper Boi” (Brian Tyree Henry), “Darius” (LaKeith Stanfield), and “Van” (Zazie Beetz) in the midst of a successful European tour, as the group navigates their new surroundings as outsiders, and struggle to adjust to the newfound success they had aspired to.

Atlanta returns to FX on March 24, and hits Hulu the following day.