This Is Quarantine.
Coachella, California, classic cipher, crowd circling like the crazy 'Crawl', or what Corona wouldn't have us doing now as if our lives depended (they do) on it...apart from stupid spring breakers to be Franco like James. Last year a distorted Twitter video emerged for as many minutes as it lasted before it was taken down of Childish Gambino, AKA, Donald Glover, Aka, everything you've heard about him is true, this generations Lando Calrissian for you Billy Dee's, AKA the adolescent 'Lion King' (the 'Young Simba' is J. Cole), AKA, the 'Atlanta' man behind the best show on television not called 'Fleabag'...or 'Community', AKA, "but it was the wife of Dr. Reginald Saunders". AKA, 'This Is America', AKA the man who has less ('Because The') internet presence than he has shirts (which believe me today is a good thing...in which way you ask? Both!), rocking the crowd like the bells. The 'Redbone' singer afro and beard blown out like the humidity of the land of palm trees, sweat soaking through the shirt he wasn't wearing for that iconic look, looked more amped than when you're favourite rapper stayed hungry. As the man with the name you used to confuse with a 'Lethal Weapon' star (no not you Mel) and a first one you wouldn't want to say on its own (like my last) showed all the hip-hop competition was too old for this s###. As the kid who references both King James and Ben Folds and came up with his rap name by a random Wu Tang Clan moniker generator on the web proved he was as hip-hop legendary as chambers that come in numbers like 36. Putting it down "like the family dog" the only people more amped than him was the crowd throwing hands like they didn't care or this was the last festival they would be able to attend before all concerts were shutdown like cinemas and courts for sports (turns out it was). In the palm of his hand like the microphone, this bass booming boomer generation were his tribe for this tribal jam that the 'Black Panther', T'Challa wishes he could walk out too for his warrior music. But before all that had chance to truly finish off my Marley heaphones the viral video was gone.
Sound familiar? Last week finally after years of waiting for the actor/sometimes comedian triple threat like Jamie Foxx's new album, Childish Glover released a stream of it exclusively on a dot com simply titled 'Donald Glover Presents' with some sketched artwork of people looking up to a burning building, whilst other took selfies for self-congratulation like a bunch of celebrities butchering John Lennon's 'Imagine' for likes...how fitting? The album featured Ariane Grande (possibly the only bigger idol on the planet right now), SZA (making good on her teasing 'America' hood cameo) and all the 21 Savage like stars for two terrific tracks and was released on the same day Jay Electronica finally dropped his album, the 5 mic hip-hop classic 'A Written Testimony' featuring Jay-Z on every track like the Wu of Ghostface Killah did to Raekwon when he was 'Only Built For Cuban Linx' and vice versa. Possibly one of the G.O.A.T. albums and best of the decade, let alone year. And yes I know it's only March and only 2020...boy do we all know it. But after 12 hours of me running round and telling everyone like Martin Lawrence (word to Jay-Z for the reference) it was gone and like the Japan I'm living in right now not reacting the same way to this current global pandemic with the self isolation we all need like geniuses like Gambino, sleeping through it, I didn't hear a thing. With this gambit, Gambino put his album into quarantine like we all should also be doing right now. But we needed it like we do now more than ever and just when we thought there was no hope (there almost really isn't...but trust, this too shall pass) left. Finally a week and change and a few days after The Weeknd released his best yet with the cinematic, classic Sin City neon 'After Hours' on the weekend, Gambino got Childish again and finally released the follow up to his landmark, iconic, classic like Coltrane or 'A Kind Of Blue' genre redefining jazz infused 'Awaken My Love' that really woke up the millennial gen that were Z...Z, Z'ing. But this time not just on 'Presents', but on Spotify and a tidal wave of all streaming services and platforms, being back for good. But this time with the pure white background of no artwork and tracks that like dates shared their strands of name with the albums '3.5.20'. A date that now lives in infamy for what we wish was just this, but instead the day we were rudely awoken too in the planetary pandemic panic we finally came to terms with when Tom Hanks and the NBA both woke up with COVID-19 (that's one album I don't want to hear from). Lando came back at the right time in the Falcon this millennium and not just for studio music to stream survive, but to save us all.
2020 has been hell from the moment we lost Kobe and GiGi and I thought it would be the year of Tokyo, 2020. But as much as it could bring the whole world together right now, that's physically, literally the last thing we need now. The games can wait. You're health can't...it isn't one. So stay at home and bump the one thing that can't be cancelled or hurt anyone no matter what a Parental Advisory sticker says in amazing albums. I can't be more explicit when it comes to this content. This is the thing we really need now, music for the soul and you know this is why he really re-released it. Any other way he would be happy never having it see the day again...but we need that light. Especially in the worst year since the last time the Olympics were held in 2016. A calender that saw us lose Prince, Ali and Bowie and gain nothing but Trump, Brexit and the haunting horrors of what Weinstein did (at least the virus got him too for what's coming to him, rotting in jail). With The Artist gone like the former champion of the world and forever greatest, I used to think that apart from an ageing American songbook of Springsteen and Dylan in this Sheeran age (with all due respect) we didn't have any young icons left to lead the way with the hope of Barack change for when America was actually land of the free, great. But how wrong I was when I heard Gambino for the first time properly like really listening to John, Paul, George and Ringo for the first real time at 25. Like hauntingly hearing the testimony of 'Terrified' in Tokyo between the lonely neons on a night on a solitary walk when I was afraid to say my relationship was over (and how about that Grammy performance with the kid JD McCrary?). Or hearing 'Sober' play in the background of a bar sitting with another girl a few years later that I really should have asked for one more drink before the road. Music memories like muscle. Because we do have those inspiring icons of influence. With Gambino, the modern day Joni in Maggie Rogers and the sister supergroup of Haim who a four track in may have the next California classic, next month in April. Now after really changing the game and world with the protest record and cultural gun clap commentary of 'This Is America', becoming the biggest star in the world the same time this solo artist was in a 'Star Wars' movie, making the coolest character even canary cooler, Glover is back with the album we've been waiting for since that iconic, shocking video and the double Summer pack which we thought two year ago had the making of a legendary album, but turned out to be the soundtrack and incorporated, incredible performances of the Amazon 'Guava Island' film with fellow forever prime time icon Rihanna for a classic story like the ones from 'Atlanta'. The 'Summertime Magic' is not here to hear, but hidden as '42.26' is the social commentary warning (oh how we need it now more than ever) disguised in a cool summertime jam like a Stevie Wonder 'Happy Birthday' MLK protest of 'Feels Like Sunmer' and the fabled prophecy lyrics to go, "Every day gets hotter than the one before/Running out of water, it's about to go down/Go down/Air that kill the bees that we depend upon/Birds were made for singing, wakin' up to no sound/No sound." And the most groundbreaking music video since 'Thriller', 'This Is America' always sledgehammer effect worked better at a steel to the temple visual anyway, as an intro that sounds like the 'Get Out' sunken place of his run leads to the '32.22' of that pockets of Coachella trible track that sounds just as animalistic. Besides in this Spotify age of playlists instead of actual albums, classic tracks are classic tracks, no matter how they reach you like his 'Camp' and 'Kauai' projects. Now if you wonder why to this date we haven't talked about any tracks in this actual album review then it's because this whole project is an experience like Hendrix or the Jimi thing about the last album with so many track for track classics you keep discovering and rediscovering as you keep this album on repeat like the Donald Glover presents stream. Like the red bones of '35.31' or the 'Time' and 'Algorhythm' of the only tracks with actual titles for a man who moves in 2 the Prince or MusiqSoulchilorBonIver way of confusing hard to cherry pick in this song over album age tracks...and that's the point. This thing plays like a whole album...a whole classic Electronica album for the weekend. But how about the outro to the outstanding '47.48', that is really what life-especially now at home-is truly all about. Just listen. Or the "there is love in every moment under the sun" message of '53.49', possibly the most uplifting track for our times right now that needs that push like we pusher need this. Our quarantine playlist never sounded so good. At least you have a soundtrack for the apocalypse. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: '32.22', 'Algorhythm', '35.31'.
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