2 Turntables & a Microphone: Childish Gambino & Beck - "Silk Pillow" (Glover-Hansen)

After 2 cancelled re-schedulings, I finally managed to see Childish Gambino live up in Sayreville, NJ with my buddy Ryan just about a month ago. Complete with lots of lights, "pyro," guitars, and violins, it seemed more like a KISS concert than a Hip-Hop show... definitely much more showmanship than I could have ever imagined! Donald Glover acts weekly on Community (NBC) and in his downtime, has begun to flesh out a pretty solid career moonlighting as an Indie rapper. Childish Gambino's recent wide-spread release, Camp really helped solidify his unique brand of raps about [college] girls strewn across Dance-laden beats. Gambino previously self-released a slew of mixtapes and online albums between 2008-10, but Camp was still semi-misleadingly totted as his "debut album."


Generally not one to enlist fellow emcees, Donald Glover seems to be changing his ways, as he's secretly complied a forthcoming feature-driven mixtape. 3 of 6 recently "leaked" tracks have housed a few guest bars: Heems, ScHoolboy Q, Nipsey Hu$$le, and most unexpectedly, Beck! Glover co-produced "Silk Pillow" along with Beck, who's largely remained a musical recluse since his expansive Record Club initiative (2009-10). Beck kicks off "Silk Pillow" with a glorious half-rapped/spoken intro segment, which vaguely reminds me of John Legend on "Blame Game," and then Childish Gambino comes in rapping about lady troubles over an 8-bit-infused Hip-Hop beat. Beck has supposedly been "working on a record for a few years... [since] Fall 2008," between producing records for Indie Rock vets, but only a few random tracks have slowly materialized since. In fact, his new 7" single for Third Man, "I Just Started Hating Some People Today," was released just yesterday afternoon. Childish Gambino's untitled mixtape should be expected sooner than later, especially @ this rate!