Gibbons Reviews: Camp by Childish Gambino

(I know I’m late to the Childish Gambino party and that this album came out months ago. But the truth is I’ve been listening to Camp since it first came out, I just never got around to writing down my thoughts on it. Ordinarily I would say, the time has passed, forget about it, but this album is too good to ignore.)

For those of you who don’t know, Childish Gambino is the rap stage name of actor/comedian Donald Glover (best known for his work on Community, which is a great show). I’ve always been a fan of Glover’s, dating back to his sketches with Derrick Comedy. Seriously, who can forget this gem? (If you thought that was good, check out some of their other sketches. I’m a big fan of the B-Boy Stance and Jazz Man videos) When I heard about Childish Gambino, I was intrigued. Camp went way beyond my expectations.

Here is the first track off Camp and maybe my favorite, “Outside.”

Outside, like most of Camp, is autobiographical. Gambino here raps about his childhood and going to school in the projects. Right in the first verse I realized that this album is gonna be good with the lines:

And I just wanna fit in, but nobody was helping me out
They talking hood shit and I ain't know what that was about
Cause hood shit and black shit is super different

Right there he affirms that there is no one, single black identity in America. A lot of Camp is about that. Glover, a black man, doesn’t ascribe to the imposed black values. He touches on this in his stand-up comedy, as well, openly considering himself a "black nerd." Here’s another line that jumped out at me from the next track “Firefly:”

Yeah so, whatcha gonna do man?
You won't speak to the hood, man
If I was given one chance I think I could, man
These black kids want somethin' new, I swear it
Somethin' they wanna say but couldn't cause they embarrassed

All I do is make the stuff I wanna write
Reference things I wanna watch, reference girls I wanna bite
Now I'm firefly like a burning kite
And yousa fake fuck like a fleshlight

Gambino wants to speak for an entire generation of black kids who don’t feel represented by current rap music. This is pretty ambitious from a guy making his debut album. But Gambino can take chances because music isn’t his day job. He didn’t make Camp to make a living, he made it to express himself. Far too few rappers, at least the commercially successful ones, are making music to express themselves. As for his references, there are some real gems in Camp, even right there with the fleshlight. With references to Invader Zim, the Human Centipede and ToeJam and Earl, Gambino is definitely separating himself from the pack.

Getting back to the tracks, “Bonfire,” though not my favorite song on the album, shows that Gambino can compete in the commercial rap game. This is angry rap, not reflective like the first two tracks, but Gambino really shows off his rapping skills here.

From “All the Shine:”

What’s the point of rap if you can’t be yourself, huh?
That’s why I come first like my cell phone
I’m a role model, I am not these other guys
I rap about my dick and talk about what girls is fly
I know it’s dumb, that’s the fucking reason I’m doing it
So why does everyone have a problem with talking stupid shit?
Or is it real shit?
‘Cause sometimes that stupid shit is real shit

The thing that sets Gambino apart from other rappers to me is his honesty and realness. “All the Shine” really shows his sincerity. Going back to my earlier point, Gambino can afford to be himself when music isn’t his day job. He’s doing this for fun and to get his views across. If people like it, then that’s great. Fortunately for him, a lot of people do.

“Heartbeat” has top 40 potential with a catchy Gambino-sung hook and a simple synth riff throughout. I actually heard this song on pop radio, which was a really pleasant surprise. Heartbeat is about complicated relationships, a non-traditional love song. Unlike a lot of rappers who drop rhymes about all the bitches they can mack, Gambino raps about his relationship he struggles to define, referencing facebook posts and blogging. It’s really accessible to Gambino’s audience.

I want to jump to the last track: “That Power.” It’s a good song but the part of it I most enjoyed was the outro, which is simply spoken in free time over the instrumental track. He tells the story of meeting a crush at a summer camp as a kid, telling her his intimate feelings, and discovering that she shared his feelings with everyone else, burning him. It’s a simple story but Gambino tells it eloquently and poetically. The most important part of the monologue, and the basis for the whole album (there’s a reason why it’s called Camp) is:

I told you something. It was just for you and you told everybody. So I learned cut out the middle man, make it all for everybody, always.

Camp is Donald Glover expressing himself in a way that he never could as an actor on Community, stand up comic or writer on 30 Rock (yeah he’s crazy talented). The tracks are pretty simple and the production isn’t spectacular, but it works well for me because it doesn’t detract from the lyrics, which are the real focus of the album. I can understand why not everyone will love Camp but I, not ordinarily a big fan of rap, found it refreshingly real, thought provoking and original.