Childish Gambino, Camp, London

Childish Gambino

Donald Glover got his stage name from an online Wu Tang Clan name generator, which invents for users the pseudonym they’d have if they were a member of the fearsome New York rap crew. Thus your correspondent rather gallingly becomes “Amateur Contender”, the Financial Times if it were a Wu Tang rapper would be “Sarkastik Samurai” and Glover – a New York-based stand-up comic and actor – is Childish Gambino.

Given Glover’s background in comedy (he was also a writer on Tina Fey’s TV show 30 Rock), you might expect his foray into rap to be a spoof, sending up its swagger, hyper-masculinity, materialism etc. But Glover is in earnest about his Gambino role. “Damn bloggers argue whether or not I’m serious,” he rapped at the start of his debut show in London, a violinist sawing away gravely behind him, beats whipping up a ferment of self-importance. The song was called “Hero” and its sentiments – Glover/Gambino’s sexual prowess, lyrical ability and all-round wonderfulness – were not meant ironically.

Beneath this braggadocio lies insecurity. Glover has a strong sense of his precarious place in hip-hop, this “nerdy ass black kid”, as he described himself in a less vainglorious moment. His verses inveigh against internet detractors, authenticity snobs, rival rappers. By some strange compensatory process, he also spends a lot of time rapping either angrily or lustfully about women. The effect is solipsistic and unsympathetic – yet it’s impossible not to be struck by the gifted way he goes about it.

The venue was a basement dive that shares the same name as Glover’s US top 20 album Camp. It offered the chance to see his skills close-up. “Backpackers” was a diatribe about who should and shouldn’t be allowed to rap, a topic that ranks somewhere near the bottom of the list of issues facing the world today. But a heavy noir shuffle and Glover’s furious delivery gave it irresistible power.

His rap technique was excellent, delivering verses with deft changes in pace and tone. Occasionally the music threatened to grow flaccid but then it would snap back into shape with booming bass and quaking beats. They hammered home Glover’s message: take this comedian-turned-rapper seriously.

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