The first single from Childish Gambino’s latest album “Awaken, My Love!” was released with little fanfare: a Youtube video of an eerie, gleeful, blue face, accompanied by a song entitled “Me and Your Mama.” However, the buzz around the song immediately snowballed beyond its understated release. “Me and Your Mama” is unlike anything Childish has released, featuring a full choir, a mixture of synths and full-fledged electric guitar, and a conspicuous lack of rapping by the famously articulate and clever emcee. The second song, “Redbone,” was released in a similar way and garnered similar excitement. Gambino’s voice is distorted beyond recognition, to a falsetto reminiscent of Prince, that bounces over compelling funk instrumentals. Both of these songs are catchy, inventive, and retro departures for Gambino, and seemed to signal a sea change in the musician’s style for his upcoming album. The anticipation for the album was fervent, and expectations were high.
These expectations changed drastically through the album’s 49 minutes. Gambino keeps a lot of what built up the initial excitement for the singles. The album is experimental, funk and R&B inspired, and entirely devoid of rapping. Where the singles took the best parts of these things and brought them to exciting and compelling new heights, much of the album paired them with messy production, indecipherable vocals, and mystifying songwriting to draw these ideas to unexpected lows.
“Boogieman” addresses themes of police bias and brutality, both highly relevant themes that musicians like Kendrick Lamar, A Tribe Called Quest, and Beyoncé have confronted. Gambino’s approach to these ideas through an extended metaphor is refreshing and interesting, but instrumentally the song is jarring, confusing, and hard to listen to. “Zombies” is almost a complete mirror image of “Boogieman,” with entertaining funk instrumentals that are bogged down by grating vocals and uninspired lyrics. Gambino’s use of auto-tune in the song is one of the least necessary and poorly executed instances of auto-tune I have heard. Throughout the song, Gambino dramatically distorts his voice, making the song feel more fit for an ill-conceived Halloween album than awards-season release.
A noticeable feature of the album is an unexpected lack of lyrics. While most of the songs are more than three minutes long, they all have repetitive, distorted choruses occasionally punctuated by single-stanza verses. This shifts the focus onto the instrumentals, which proves to be a wildly mixed bag. In Camp (2011) and Because the Internet (2013), Gambino showed himself to be a highly gifted lyricist, mixing social commentary, ballads, and braggadocio through puns, alliteration, and unflinching willingness to defy traditional rap norms. This lack of lyrical value leaves the album feeling empty, devoid of what helped Childish Gambino carve his niche in the rap industry.
Gambino’s traditional beachy lightness is present at times on the album, layering ukulele over melancholic electric guitar and a choir in “The Night Me and Your Mama Met.” Gambino creates this vibe instrumentally in “California” with judicious use of bongo drums, maracas, and güiros, but deprives the song of any pleasant airiness with urgent vocals that feel somehow compressed.
“Awaken My Love” rises beyond much of Gambino’s past works at times, and the closing track, “Stand Tall” features his refreshingly unedited voice and a beautiful choir working together on an understated and laid back beat, providing a remarkably peaceful and natural ending to Gambino’s messy, chaotic, and stressful project.
Since its release, “Awaken, My Love!” has been extremely polarizing, garnering harsh critics and ardent supporters throughout the music industry. Gambino makes a distinct departure from his traditional style in many aspects of the album, and occasionally finds success. His instrumentals are generally exceptional, and the vocal experimentation he toys with is at times successful and compelling. He does push these things too far, however, and this can understandably drive many listeners away. With time the new sounds become more palatable, the album becomes considerably more enjoyable, and Gambino’s reorientation proves itself to be interesting and enjoyable. “Awaken, My Love” is a welcome departure from Childish Gambino, which would have benefitted from polishing around the edges, but hails a bold new direction for the talented comedian-actor-musician.
Voice’s Choices: “Me and Your Mama”, “Redbone”, “Stand Tall”
