Home News Best New Music Reviews Albums Tracks Sunday Reviews 8.0 Reviews Features The Pitch Lists Guides Longform Rising Photo Galleries Video OverUnder Liner Notes Under the Influences Podcast Events Newsletter Advertising Masthead Careers Contact Accessibility Help More Pitchfork Pitchfork Music Festival Chicago Pitchfork Music Festival Paris Pitchfork Music Festival Berlin Pitchfork Radio Pitchfork Podcast Home News Reviews Best New Music Features The Pitch Video Podcast Staff Picks Events Toggle main navigation menu Open search module Expand audio player Home News Reviews Best New Music Features The Pitch Video Podcast Staff Picks Events Toggle main navigation menu Open search module Expand audio player Childish Gambino Camp Glassnote 2011 1.6 by Ian Cohen Contributor Rap December 2 2011 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Open share drawer Community star Donald Glovers fourth hip-hop collection-- the first with a commercial release-- is preposterously self-obsessed, but not the least bit self-aware.The album maintains some of the overweening humor of Donald Glover s sitcom Community, but Glovers exaggerated, cartoonish flow and overblown pop-rap production are enough to make Camp one of the most uniquely unlikable rap records of this year (and most others).Whats worse is how he uses heavy topics like race, masculinity, relationships, street cred, and real hip-hop as props to construct a false outsider persona.On record, he paints himself as a misunderstood victim of cultural preconceptions who is obviously smarter and funnier than his primetime material suggests.
Unfortunately, its a position that holds up to absolutely no scrutiny whatsoever. On a song-by-song basis, he scripts a slightly off-brand, fictional version of Kanye West being played for laughs. We could talk about Glovers bloodlines all day, but Childish Gambinos paternity test traces straight back to All Falls Down. You See Me reimagines Niggas in Paris as a meme cemetery, with Glover painfully leaning into herniated punchlines like, Shes an overachiever All she does is suck seed. Or maybe Asian girls everywhere. UCLA will eventually end up on a T-shirt.) The bottle-service electro of Heartbeat could have been the 10th-funniest song on 808s Heartbreak -- somewhere between The Coldest Winter and Love Lockdown -- and its actually trying for laughs. ![]() And any shred of relatability Glover establishes by reminiscing about sinkbaths with his cousin, or trying to fit into the white school his parents busted their asses to send him to, are cancelled out by RB hooks so garish and impersonal they make Lupe Fiasco s Lasers sound dignified. Yes, thats a lot of Yeezy talk, but the most insidious aspect of Camp is how Glover operates from a pre-Kanye inferiority complex where he senses that any dismissal of his music stems from gangsta rap still being the predominant aesthetic version of hip-hop (never mind that the most commercially relevant guy who can be feasibly be called gangsta rap right now is Rick Ross, and even hes widely beloved on account of being an acknowledged pathological liar). Note how its title co-opts the one epithet more outdated than hipster in rap music circa 2011. At the very least, Camp can serve as hashtag raps tombstone, and Ill just present some choice quotes without comment so you can decide for yourself: I made the beat and murdered it, Casey Anthony, You can kiss my ass, Human Centipede, I got a girl on my arm, dude show respect Something crazy and Asian, Virginia Tech. In Fire Fly, he brags about the ease of scoring college gigs and college girls (while rhyming LSU with molest you) and then complains: No live shows because I cant find sponsors For the only black guy at a Sufjan concert. Camp Childish Gambino Rar Cracker Like MyselfBullshit. OK, look: I realize that theres a chance some kid will hear that line and feel validated, and you know, the last thing we need is an armchair cracker like myself relating contrary anecdotal evidence about the demographics at Sufjan Stevens last concert. Camp Childish Gambino Rar Free Pass ToSo lets just look at the facts: Jay-Z and Beyonc could be seen at Grizzly Bear shows in 2009, Justin Vernon has a free pass to jump on any track he chooses, and producers spent the year sampling Beach House, the xx, and Tame Impala. How does Glover explain Drake Is he crazy or hood, or just a half-Jewish, former child actor from Toronto whos already sold 600,000 copies of Take Care while signed to Lil Waynes record label I mean, sub-major hip-hop isnt a post-cred, post-racial utopia by any means, but I cant think of another time when there were more options for listeners of just about any race or background seeking to identify with rappers on a non-allegorical level.
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