You may have already heard of Donald Glover as an actor, musician, producer, director, comedian, or writer. I am not just citing titles surrounding Glover, but naming every single category that he’s excelled and won multiple awards for. He's won Emmys for his hit show Atlanta all the way to Grammys for his everlasting album, Awaken, My Love. Last summer, Glover played a young Lando Calrissian in last summer's box office hit, Solo: A Star Wars Story, taking on the iconic role of 70's sex symbol, Billy Dee Williams. He has also been cast in the "live-action" remake of the original animated Lion King playing Simba. I declare Donald Glover, like Leonardo Da Vinci, a modern-day renaissance man: an artist who excels at various numerous different things at the height of artistry.
In 2006, Glover graduated with an NYU dramatic writing degree, he wrote a spec script for The Simpsons and was immediately hired by Tina Fey to write on her hit TV show 30 Rock. Glover also considers himself an actor/comedian so in 2008, he auditioned for SNL to play Obama but lost out to Fred Armisen. Glover, after four years, left 30 Rock, and joined the cast of the hit TV show Community. While acting there, Glover also dropped multiple mix tapes, and two award winning albums, Camp and Because the Internet. In 2014, he left the cast of Community and produced a Grammy nominated album called, Awaken, My Love in 2016, which won a Grammy for the single Redbone. Glover even did a 30 minute stand-up special for “Comedy Central Presents” in 2010.
The first trailer for Atlanta dropped August 13th, 2016. Atlanta is an alchemic mix of great writing, fine acting skills, and amazing music. Glover’s project took cable TV by storm, winning two Emmys in its first season. Normally, in creating a show, one person is either a creator, producer, director, music composer, writer, or actor but Glover is accredited for all of them. Atlanta is about Earn Marks (Donald Glover) and his cousin Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles (Brian Henry). Glover plays the dysfunctional manager of his rapper client Paper Boi and all takes place in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta is a surreal comedy with inventive situational plots of the hip hop world, but we eventually realize it's much more than a TV show. Glover said in an interview, “I’m not making a TV show, I am making an experience.” The first season, ten episodes, is filled with deep meanings one might realize only after a second or third viewing. Glover excels in the art of delivering hidden messages in the form of entertainment; his topics include police brutality, homophobia, racism, abuse, and sexism. Atlanta, Glover’s current magnum opus, used all of his talents to present the issues of America, camouflaged as brilliant comedy.
And just last May, hosting SNL, Donald Glover, under his music alias “Childish Gambino” debuted a single, This is America. The song along with the music video was a topic of controversy for weeks, being the hot topic on websites, forums, and news articles. Each part of the music video was disassembled and each word and gesture microscopically analysed. Glover's This is America is a hip hop song infused with simple vocals and lyrics, but is rich with imagery, visible and aural, creating a masterpiece. Again Glover used his mastery of hiding messages to make us dig deeper. The song commences with Glover, a shirtless black man, shooting a hooded black man. On one layer, it could be categorized simply as "black on black crime" but notice the unorthodox way Glover positioned his body to shoot the hooded black man. Glover's unusual body language was a caricature of Jim Crow, a symbol the South used to enforce racial segregation. Gun violence is a central message of Glover’s tour de force, a segment shows Glover gunning down a church choir, a nod to the 2015 Charleston Church shooting. Other messages included police brutality, worship of guns, and the mammoth influence of social media on children, all issues ripe for examination in America today.
Donald Glover can be bestowed the title of “Renaissance Man” not just because of his ability to make music or write well, but because he produces, directs, acts and creates whole complete works that will stand the test of time. Glover will not stop anytime soon, and it is with great anticipation that we await his new project with the knowledge that it will be something that nobody will expect.