Donald Glover Confirms He’s Not Done Making Music as Childish Gambino
After saying he would be retiring the Childish Gambino alias a few years back, Donald Glover has confirmed he will continue to work under the moniker for the foreseeable future.
On Tuesday (Jan. 10), Gambino was preset at the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. where he was up for the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series. Prior to the event, E! News caught up with the rapper-actor on the red carpet where he also spoke on his musical future.
"I’m making music right now. I love it," Gambino said. "I’m actually in the studio. I’ve been bringing people in, like secret people, working on little things. I’ve been just making it for fun right now. But soon something will happen. I promise."
The Atlanta co-creator was then asked about his past claims of retiring his long-held handle.
"That was out in the ethos," Gambino confirmed. "You don’t have to worry about that. He’ll be back. He’s here right now."
Back in 2017, Childish Gambino claimed he would retire his rap alias, saying he felt it wasn't necessary.
"There’s nothing worst than like a third sequel, like a third movie and we’re like, 'again?'" he explained to the HuffPost. "You know, I like it when something’s good and when it comes back there’s a reason to come back, there’s a reason to do that."
"I feel like there’s gotta be a reason to do things and I always had a reason to be punk," he continued. "Being punk just always felt really good to me and we always looked at Atlanta as a punk show and I feel like the direction I would go with Childish Gambino wouldn’t be punk anymore. As much as ‘Redbone’ is a punk song because it’s a gospel song that’s on the radio, I’m like there’s only so far you can go before you just are the radio."
Since that time, Childish Gambino has released the albums Awaken, My Love! (2016) and 3.15.20 (2020). Gambino is coming off the finale of his award-winning television show Atlanta, which wrapped its final season in November of 2022. In September of 2022, it was announced that a movie based on the Community television series starring Childish Gambino is happening on Peacock.