Written by written by @bryce
Intro
July 19th 2024 marks the release of Donald Glover’s 6th and final album under the pseudonym Childish Gambino. Gambino has had a pretty crazy run over his nearly 20 year long music career. He started off as a goofy backpack rapper with releases like “Culdesac” and “Camp“, but over the years has matured and developed a lot to become more artistic and psychedelic multi genre artist. It’s sometimes hard to believe that the artist behind “Redbone” and “Bonfire” are the same person.
His latest album is titled “Bando Stone and The New World“, and acts as a soundtrack to a film he announced on Gilga Radio by the same name. The album showcases Donald’s boundless creativity and wide range of musical interest and influence, blending genres into one masterfully crafted piece of music. It’s believed to be his last work with the “Childish Gambino” name.
We’re unsure if this means that he’s done with music altogether, or if he’s just gonna be releasing under the name “Donald Glover” from this point on. However, if I know one thing for sure, it’s that “Bando Stone and The New World” is one hell of a way to say goodbye to Childish Gambino.
Sonic Exploration in “Bando Stone and The New World”
Long time Gambino fans will know that throughout his career, Donald has primarily worked with one producer by the name of Ludwig Göransson. Göransson is an award winning composer and musician from Sweden, most recently winning several award for the original score of the 2023 film “Oppenheimer“. He and Donald had originally met on the set of “Community“. Since then they’ve worked together on every Gambino project from “Camp” to “Awaken, My Love“.
But starting with the 2020 release of “3.15.20” (now known as “Atavista” with it’s finished rerelease in 2024), Göransson has taken a bit of a back seat in the production in Gambino’s albums. “Atavista” and “Bando Stone and The New World” feature much more production from Glover himself, as well as many others across the two albums. And while Göransson still has a few production credits across the two albums, he’s not nearly as prominent as he was before.
I believe this change to be a reflection of Glover’s ongoing artistic growth, production wise his horizon’s have been expanded quite a bit and he’s exploring a lot of different influences and interests. “Bando Stone and The New World” explores lot’s of different styles, ranging from noise and distortion on tracks like “Got To Be” or “H3@RT$ W3RE M3@NT T0 F7¥“, to more soulful sounds like “We Are God“.
There’s even songs that go more into a pop rock kind of sound, like the primary single “Lithonia” or “Running Around“. You’ve even got a few songs that just have him and a guitar, like “Dadvocate” and “Steps Beach“. Musically it’s pretty all over the place. Some tracks are very experimental while some other tracks feel pretty safe, but I find it to be overall very consistent across the board.
Thematic Depth and Exploration
“Bando Stone and The New World” is a bit of an interesting case. The album itself dives into many themes, talking topics like love, faith, personal growth, and fatherhood. Throughout the album Glover’s son Legend can be heard, even being fully featured on the track “Can You Feel Me“, a track all about the love they have for each other, and being there for one another. All these themes are covered throughout the story of the album, that acts almost a rock opera. It’s telling the story of Bando Stone, a famous singer in the film that’s played by Glover himself, and pictured on the cover.
The films trailer paints it to be an action / comedy film that might even have some horror elements in it. In the trailer we’re questioned about how we would react to the end of the world, as we watch some kind of digital presence taking a very scary control over the surroundings of the island that the film is set in. But other than that as well as the “Lithonia” music video (be wary watching it, it’s not what it seems at first) we don’t really have much to go off of.
By listening to the album we can pick up bits and pieces of the film’s story, almost every track ends with a skit featuring some dialogue from the film itself giving us small glimpses. But outside of that the album also definitely stands on it’s own, disconnected from the film. It’s not your average soundtrack. Many tracks seem to feature perspectives both from the character “Bando Stone”, but also Donald Glover himself. We already kind of talked about that when discussing his relationship with his son Legend, but it can be heard all over the album.
For example, right before “Can You Feel Me” is the track “Yoshinoya“, a song that contains what’s arguably Donald’s best verse, and maybe even my favorite verse released so far this year. It’s rapped from Donald’s perspective is pretty strictly set in the real world, taking shots at Drake, though his name is never specifically mentioned. He had originally written his incredibly popular track “This Is America” as a Drake diss before changing his mind, which he mentions again on this track. He also takes shots at Drake’s relationship with his son Adonis, while implying that his relationship with his son Legend is much better on the following track that we mentioned before.
And while I could keep talking about this dual perspective between the fictional “New World” of “Bando Stone”, and the reality of Donald Glover for much longer, I think I’ll cut it there so I can keep going with this review. Many of the themes here seem very relevant to Donald’s real life, and have plenty that we as listeners can learn from. This makes me very excited to see how these themes are gonna be involved in the movie, or if they even will be at all. Like I said before, the album can stand on it’s own, but without the context of the film it doesn’t feel super cohesive, but I assume this will come with time when the film releases. That being said, I do personally feel that it doesn’t even necessarily need to be cohesive to be a fun and enjoyable project.
Outro
If it’s not clear by now having read the rest of the review and seen my 9/10 rating at the top, I very thoroughly enjoyed this album. Every time I see Donald working on something new it fills me with so much anticipation and excitement. He has near boundless creativity, and I always love to see how he’ll defy whatever space he’s working in, whether it be bending genres or subverting expectations in film.
This album showcases that pretty dang perfectly. He’s multitalented, first releasing an incredible album, and soon to be following it up with what will (hopefully) be an incredible film. Between himself and the future creative projects that will be coming from Gilga, I can’t wait to see what’s coming next.
Thanks for reading my review! What’d you think? Do you agree or disagree? Leave a comment or shoot me a message, I’d love to discuss! I write reviews, artist features, vinyl record nerd posts and more every day and if you find that the least bit interesting, I’d highly recommend checking out the rest of my posts and signing up on The Groove Grounds to become a part of the community, we’d love to have you. I appreciate you stopping by, and I’d highly suggest checking out the track “Yoshinoya” from Childish Gambino’s “Bando Stone and The New World“. It’s a banger, I promise.
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