Glover, Jr was born at Edwards Air Force Base, California and raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia. His mother, Beverly (Smith, is a retired daycare provider, and his father, Donald, Sr, is a retired postal worker. His parents also served as DeKalb County foster parents for 14 years. He was raised a Jehovah's Witness. He was voted "Most Likely to Write for The Simpsons" in his High School yearbook. Glover, Jr graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in dramatic writing in 2006.
From 2006 to 2009, Glover, Jr was a writer for the NBC series 30 Rock where he also had occasional cameo appearances. He was presented the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the third season. Glover, Jr's stage name, Childish Gambino, came from the Wu-Tang Clan's name generator. On June 5, 2008, he released an independent album, titled Sick Boi. Glover, Jr would then become a member of the sketch comedy group Derrick Comedy, along with Dominic Dierkes, Meggie McFadden, DC Pierson, and Dan Eckman. The group wrote and starred in a feature-length film, Mystery Team, released in theaters in 2009.
On September 17, 2009, Childish Gambino released the independent album Poindexter. A pair of mixtapes, titled I Am Just a Rapper and I Am Just A Rapper 2 were released, in close succession in 2010. Robert Scahill added his producing expertise helping with the majority of the tracks. The track listings for those mixtapes consist of the name of the song "he" raps, followed by the song he raps over. His second album, Culdesac, was set to be released on July 2, 2010, but a couple of last minute additions caused the album to be delayed for a day. The album was made available on July 3. Glover, Jr has stated in interviews that on Sick Boi and Poindexter he felt he had to hide behind gimmicks, such as pink hoodies, but with his subsequent projects, he has touched on more personal subject matter, including family, schoolyard bullying, troubled romantic relationships, suicidal thoughts and alcoholism. He has disowned his 2005 album, The Younger I Get, as the too-raw ramblings of what he calls a "decrepit."
Glover, Jr's stand-up special aired on Comedy Central on March 19, 2010. In May 2010, a fan suggested Glover, Jr for the role of Peter Parker in the then-upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man film, encouraging his supporters to retweet the hashtag "#donald4spiderman". The campaign, originally started to see how far social networking could carry a message, quickly gained a large following. The call for Glover to be allowed to audition for the role was supported by Spider-Man creator Stan Lee. Glover, Jr was not awarded an audition and the role instead went to Andrew Garfield. He would later reveal that he was never contacted by anyone from Sony Pictures for the role. Comics writer Brian Michael Bendis, who announced an African-American version of Spider-Man a year later, said he had conceived of the character before Glover, Jr's campaign went viral. Bendis gave credit to Glover for influencing the new hero's looks for Spider-man after seeing him dressed as Spider-Man on Community (a nod to the campaign), Bendis said, "I saw him in the costume and thought, 'I would like to read that book.'" Glover, Jr would later voice this incarnation of Spider-Man on the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series.
Glover, Jr received the Rising Comedy Star award at the Just for Laughs festival in July 2010. Glover, Jr was featured in Gap's 2010 Holiday ad campaign. He DJs and produces electronic music under the moniker "mcDJ" (pronounced "M-C-D-J"). His music is often made available for free download via his website.
On December 1, 2010, Glover, Jr released the first track off of his EP titled "Be Alone". He released the next track, "Freaks and Geeks", as well as a five-song track list, on February 11, 2011. On February 25, Glover, Jr released the dates for the IAMDONALD tour and also his very first music video for "Freaks and Geeks". The music video was shot by Dan Eckman, the director of the Derrick Comedy troupe. This song was later used in an Adidas commercial featuring Dwight Howard. On March 8, 2011 Glover, Jr released the EP via his official website.
On March 16, 2011, Glover, Jr hosted the mtvU Woodie Awards held live at South By Southwest. On March 24, 2011, Glover, Jr taped his one-hour comedy special Weirdo for Comedy Central; it aired on November 19.
Glover, Jr appeared at the 2011 Bonnaroo Music Festival on June 9 in the 'This Tent' as Childish Gambino and June 11 at 'The Comedy Theater' with Bill Bailey performing stand up. Comedy Central streamed the comedy live on their website.
On May 4, 2011, in an interview with TheHipHopUpdate, Gambino revealed that he was working on an LP, to be released in September. On July 25, 2011, Glover, Jr announced that his new album would be titled Camp. On October 8, during his Orlando, Florida concert, he announced Camp would be released on November 15, 2011. Glover, Jr worked with friend and film composer Ludwig Göransson on the debut album. On August 20, 2011, at the Los Angeles Rock The Bells concert, he gave an interview to AllHipHop.com, and he announced to the crowd that he had signed with Glassnote Records. On September 20, his first official single, "Bonfire", was released.
The IAMDONALD tour made 24 stops in 34 days, beginning with Ames, Iowa, on April 16, and finishing with Minneapolis on May 19. In between, this included stops at music venues in Las Vegas, Houston, Washington, and Atlanta. The tour was a one-man live show that consisted of rap, comedy, and video segments.
The Sign-Up Tour was Glover, Jr's next pre-album tour. He visited 11 cities over the course of 38 days in October and November 2011. Chidlish G made a website for the tour called Camp Gambino on November 19, four days after his album released. The tour featured special guest Danny Brown and made 20 stops during the course of 32 days along a dates in California in December. On March 14, 2012, several dates on the CAMP tour were postponed due to a fractured foot Childish suffered on March 10, while performing in Tampa, Florida. The tour began in Austin, Texas on April 5 and ended August 10 in Hollywood, California.
On January 11, 2012, Childish Gambino announced on his website that a new mixtape would be coming out soon. On April 2, he released a new song, "Eat Your Vegetables", through his website. On May 14, Funkmaster Flex premiered "Unnecessary," featuring Schoolboy Q. On May 16, Gambino released "We Ain't Them" through his website, produced by himself and frequent collaborator Ludwig. On May 22, Glover, Jr appeared on Das Racist's radio show "Chillin' Island" where he premiered a new song, "Tell Me," which featured Himanshu Suri, aka Heems from Das Racist. On May 26, Glover released "Black Faces", featuring Nipsey Hussle and produced by Boi-1da. On May 30, he released a third track, "Silk Pillow," featuring Beck and produced by both Glover, Jr and Beck. On June 25, he revealed that the mixtape was to be released on July 4, 2012. On June 26, Glover, Jr premiered another new track, on Sway in the Morning (on Shade 45), entitled "One Up," featuring his brother, Steve G. Lover. That same day, he stated that the mixtape would be titled Royalty despite previous statements that it would not be called that. On July 4, 2012, he released Royalty for free via digital download. On July 7, 2012, Gambino released the track, "Body," featuring Prodigy, which did not make the cut for the mixtape. On July 24, 2012, he released the music video for "Fire Fly" through his VEVO account on YouTube.
On August 21, 2012, BBC Radio 1 premiered Leona Lewis' new song, "Trouble" off her upcoming album Glassheart, which features Childish Gambino. The song was available for purchase via iTunes on October 7, and peaked at #7 on the UK Singles Chart the following week, making it his first UK top 10 single. On November 4, 2012 Ludwig Göransson said in an interview with Portable that he and Gambino were in his studio coming up with new ideas for the next album which was to be "bigger" and "with more people involved."
In 2013, Glover, Jr signed on to create a music-themed show for FX titled Atlanta in which he will star, write, and executive produce. Consequently, he decided to reduce his work for NBC, and only appears in the first five episodes of Community's 13-episode fifth season. Although many TV stations were interested in picking up his half-hour comedy, he ultimately picked FX due to their willingness to work around his touring schedule.
On October 6, 2013, he announced on Twitter that his second studio album was completed. He further announced this at Homecoming Week at Penn State University, stating “I got a new album coming out soon, so this is the last time we’re gonna play a lot of this shit.” On October 8, 2013, he announced its title as Because the Internet and revealed that it would be released in December 2013. On October 21, 2013, Glover, Jr released the first single "3005", and announced a release date for the album as December 10, 2013. On February 15, 2014, the rapper launched his Deep Web Tour in the UK. On February 27, Childish Gambino was scheduled to begin the United States portion of his tour with a gig at the Fox Theater in Oakland, California. On June 6, 2014, RIAA certified Heartbeat Gold - making it Glover's first certification, and then on July 18, 2014, RIAA also certified 3005 Gold, making it Glover's second certification.
On October 2, 2014, he released a new mixtape titled STN MTN, and the next day he released an EP titled Kauai. The mixtape and the EP follow the story that was last told in Because The Internet and are meant to be a joint project instead of separate projects.
On October 10, 2014, Ubisoft revealed that they had collaborated with Glover, Jr to incorporate his song, "Crawl" into Far Cry 4.
On December 5, 2014 Glover, Jr was nominated for two Grammy Awards. He was a contender for Best Rap Album for Because The Internet (Glassnote Records) and Best Rap Performance for his single, “3005.”
On March 21, 2015 Glover, Jr won an mtvU Woodies Award for Best Video Woodie for the song "Sober" from the Kauai EP.
As of February 2016, Because the Internet has been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipping over 500,000 copies.
Glover's third album, Awaken, My Love!, spawned the single "Redbone", which peaked at number twelve on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually earned him his first Grammy Award. In 2018, Glover released "This Is America", which debuted at number-one on the Hot 100, and won four Grammy Awards, including for Song and Record of the Year.[13] Glover's fourth album, 3.15.20, was released in 2020.[14]
Candler Road
Childish Gambino Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Room service like 2K, NBA, I'm ballin', nigga
All them niggas, fallin' like Autumn, nigga
Talkin' shit, I saw them niggas, now their daughter want a picture
Rough ain't it? Fuck famous
Niggas too real, got the most haters
Wrote a story so Stephen Curry:
How it feel to be golden?
Hanalei Bay with my babe, what can I say?
I did it, my timin' was perfect, I'm comin', they know it
Becomin' the last great American poet
The flow Lindsay Lohan
Tired, nigga, we're tired, nigga
My word is art like a hieroglyphic
What island is this?
Cabernet, I can smell a tarp
She wanna swim but can barely walk
She 'fraid of sharks, she'd hate my lawyer
Atlanta, Georgia, got somethin' for yah
I'm doin' somethin', stay wit' it
I sport the Oakland A fitted
'Cause it's moneyball and I'm throwin' funny
But all the kids will go get it, god dammit I'm ill
I got one question for the haters, is your girl on the pill?
I'm playin' though, but like really, really?
Oh man
Oh man, oh man, oh man
I got a hook for this, it's like
Ba-b-ba-b-ba-ba
B-ba-b-ba-b-ba-ba
Na-na-di-ma-ma-ma
I love you all the time
Somethin' like that
I'm the man forever
They can't let a nigga live 'cause the life is better
85 Everyday, why'd I bring this sweater?
I fell asleep on the beach, tiny pink umbrella
Fell out of my drink, she yellin', "What we doin' tonight?"
50K their first week, you ain't doin' it right
Young Bino best friends with the show promoters
Good year, my career is floatin', it's all me
'Cause I stay real, the worst pain, niggas don't feel
'Cause they ain't feel a nigga, tried to kill a nigga
But he still went stupid
Silver stones honorin' the game so clueless
These niggas ain't us
Hopin' that I diss you back so I can make you famous
I'm just tired of haters
The AK goin' off, sound like cicadas
We the clique all day, man I'm so Decatur
Me and Fam backstage, yeah I know you hate us
But you gotta pay us
Let 'em speak at my peak in the game for a minute
But I don't know how
All these light skinned niggas came back in style
Yea you lied to us, pretty girls at my concerts
Flow so cold so you know it was mine first
Stank attitude but I like the way she diddy bop
Puffin' white O's, body bang somethin' Nitty Scott
They want the old Bino so they try to rewind
The new Bino too ahead of his time
In a couple of years, they'll have to say I birthed a couple careers
Chances are get your boy a couple of ears, you know it
Ba-b-ba-b-ba-ba
Duh-d-duh-duh-d-duh
Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh
I love you all the time
I don't have words for this part
But I know it should sound like this
Duh-d-duh-duh-duh-duh
To love you all the time
In the song "Candler Road" by Childish Gambino, he reflects on his rise to fame while still staying true to himself. He begins the first verse by expressing his dislike for inauthentic people, focusing specifically on women who are looking for fame. He then boasts about his success in the entertainment industry, referencing his room service, NBA and "ballin'" lifestyle. Gambino's lyrics then take a darker turn as he highlights the negative aspects of fame, including an increase in haters and people wanting to tear him down. He compares himself to basketball player Stephen Curry and asks why he was chosen to be successful. He ends the verse with a reference to Lindsay Lohan's troubled life, comparing her to his own chaotic lifestyle, and finally declaring himself as the "last great American poet."
In the second verse, Gambino continues to discuss his success, mentioning his album's impressive first week sales. He refers to himself as "Young Bino" and boasts about his connections in the music industry. Gambino also acknowledges the difficulty of staying true to himself in the music industry, referencing people who have tried to "kill" him, but he still remains true to himself. He concludes the song by looking towards the future and asserting his confidence that he has the potential to "birth a couple of careers."
Overall, the song highlights the challenges of staying authentic in the entertainment industry and the pressures of fame.
Line by Line Meaning
I ain't lovin' these fake hoes, room smellin' like 8 swishers
I don't like these fake women and my room smells like a lot of cigars
Room service like 2K, NBA, I'm ballin', nigga
Room service is like in the video game 2K, I'm playing like I'm in the NBA and I'm doing great
All them niggas, fallin' like Autumn, nigga
All those guys are falling down like it's autumn season
Talkin' shit, I saw them niggas, now their daughter want a picture
They were talking a lot of nonsense, but now their daughters want to take a picture with me after seeing me
Rough ain't it? Fuck famous
It's not easy, being famous is not what it's cracked up to be
Niggas too real, got the most haters
Real people have the most enemies
Wrote a story so Stephen Curry: How it feel to be golden?
I wrote a story for Stephen Curry about what it feels like to be successful
Why was I chosen?
Why was I picked for this?
Hanalei Bay with my babe, what can I say?
I'm at Hanalei Bay with my partner, what else is there to say?
I did it, my timin' was perfect, I'm comin', they know it
I did it, my timing was perfect and everyone knows that I'm coming
Becomin' the last great American poet
I'm on my way to becoming the greatest poet in America
The flow Lindsay Lohan
My flow is like Lindsay Lohan, unpredictable
Tired, nigga, we're tired, nigga
I'm exhausted, we're exhausted
My word is art like a hieroglyphic
My words are like art, just like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics
What island is this?
I don't know which island this is
Cabernet, I can smell a tarp
I smell the aroma of Cabernet and rubber
She wanna swim but can barely walk
She wants to swim but she's not steady on her feet
She 'fraid of sharks, she'd hate my lawyer
She's scared of sharks, but she'd hate my tough lawyer even more
Atlanta, Georgia, got somethin' for yah
I've got something for you from Atlanta, Georgia
I'm doin' somethin', stay wit' it
I'm doing something, just stick with me
I sport the Oakland A fitted
I'm wearing an Oakland A fitted cap
'Cause it's moneyball and I'm throwin' funny
Because it's moneyball and I have a unique style
But all the kids will go get it, god dammit I'm ill
But all the children will understand it, I'm extremely talented
I got one question for the haters, is your girl on the pill?
I have a question for the haters, is your girlfriend using contraception?
Oh man, Oh man, Oh man
Oh man, oh man, oh man
I got a hook for this, it's like
I've got a hook for this part, it goes something like this
Na-na-di-ma-ma-ma
I don't know what words to use here, so it's just sounds
I love you all the time, Somethin' like that
I always love you, it's something like that
I'm the man forever
I'll always be the man
They can't let a nigga live 'cause the life is better
They won't let me live my life because my life is better than theirs
85 Everyday, why'd I bring this sweater?
Every day is hot, why did I bring a sweater?
I fell asleep on the beach, tiny pink umbrella
I fell asleep on the beach, under a small pink umbrella
Fell out of my drink, she yellin', "What we doin' tonight?"
My drink spilled, and she's asking what we're going to do tonight
50K their first week, you ain't doin' it right
They only made 50K in the first week, they're not doing it right
Young Bino best friends with the show promoters
Young Bino is best friends with the show's promoters
Good year, my career is floatin', it's all me
It's been a good year, my career is going well and it's all my doing
'Cause I stay real, the worst pain, niggas don't feel
Because I'm genuine, people can't relate when I'm going through hardships
'Cause they ain't feel a nigga, tried to kill a nigga
Because they don't connect with me, some have even attempted to kill me
But he still went stupid
But even though people tried to bring him down, he still thrived
Silver stones honorin' the game so clueless
Silver stones honoring the game even though they don't know anything about it
These niggas ain't us
These guys are not like us
Hopin' that I diss you back so I can make you famous
They want me to diss them back so they can become famous
I'm just tired of haters
I'm simply tired of people hating on me
The AK goin' off, sound like cicadas
The AK-47 is firing, and it sounds like cicadas
We the clique all day, man I'm so Decatur
We're a clique all day, and I'm so Decatur
Me and Fam backstage, yeah I know you hate us
Me and my family behind the scenes, I know you don't like us
But you gotta pay us
You have to pay us
Let 'em speak at my peak in the game for a minute, But I don't know how
Let them talk about me when I'm at the top of my game, but I don't know how long it'll last
All these light skinned niggas came back in style
All these light-skinned guys are popular again
Yea you lied to us, pretty girls at my concerts
Yes, you lied to us, there are pretty girls at my concerts
Flow so cold so you know it was mine first
My flow is so unique, you know it was mine first
Stank attitude but I like the way she diddy bop
She has a bad attitude, but I like the way she dances
Puffin' white O's, body bang somethin' Nitty Scott
Smoking white owl cigars and dancing with Nitty Scott
They want the old Bino so they try to rewind
They want the old me, so they try to go back in time
The new Bino too ahead of his time
The new me is too far ahead of my time
In a couple of years, they'll have to say I birthed a couple careers
In a few years, they'll have to admit that I helped create a few careers
Chances are get your boy a couple of ears, you know it
I'll probably get some more listeners, you know it
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Donald Glover
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@OhhHeavyEyezz
"I don't have words for this one, but I know it should sound like this."
at least he's straight up lol
@TheAstroTaco13
+chloe woods it was probably unfinished
@ElvisFreshly
+chloe woods its actually a taylor swift beat, and he is implying thats how he would of done it...
@sirjaishadmalik4034
+Elvis Freshly that was a Taylor swift beat, what song of her's was it?
@obrey__
Elvis Freshly yeah, what song? Sounds like something talor swift would snap on 💯💯🔥🔥🙌🙌🙏🙏😂😂😂😂😂
@SpectreRyder
I think he just freestyled it and that's how it came out.
@seangogolin
Huge crime that this song isn’t on Spotify. One of my favorites in discography.
@CzArODriego
Not even on Apple Music I’m mad
@masonkrcmarik7303
Seriously wtf
@donterianoliver7937
The whole album needs to be on streaming, my life would be complete lok