Poets & Passages - Donald Glover Interview
Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, aka Troy from the TV show Community, aka former writer for 30 Rock, aka this is one talented dude, had a very interesting interview with Rembert Browne from Grantland recently. I've followed both these guys for a while, and Browne comes off as a very personable guy who asks the right (and interesting) questions and connects with his interviewees, which in turn gets the interviewee to open up. Gambino was surprisingly honest, and I thought this interview was refreshing because it felt like a true dialogue between two human beings - not interviewer vs interviewee, but two people talking. I included a few of my favorite answers by Glover on a number of topics. Check out the whole interview for all the Q&A's at Grantland: http://grantland.com/features/donald-glover-childish-gambino-grammys/
On culture: "Culture’s so important. Honestly, there haven’t been that many big jumps in culture lately, because it just eats itself now. And we’re seeing some changes — I’m happy about this feminist movement, because it’s a human movement. But mainly the culture is just eating itself. And there are so many things that come out where it’s like, I just took that old video, this old thing, and made this. And that’s cool, I get it. But there’s no room for mistakes. Because everyone knows mistakes mean less money."
On fame: "I hate being famous. Fame is not really cool at all. People don’t realize how dangerous it is...It’s scary to be famous. They know everything about you. They know what your house looks like. They know you shoot all your videos in your house. So, I guess, yeah — I do look for normalcy. Because red doesn’t show up on red. Red shows up on white. So in order for you to make something that is really visceral on an art level or anything, you really have to have an idea of how do regular people live, for real."
On his albums and reflecting on past creative outputs: "Each one of the albums is kind of a diary or a time stamp that you have with people and then people make their own emotional connections to them. So you have to be careful. But I don’t just put them away. I usually go back and listen to them. But sometimes it is hard to go back and listen or read — if you kept a journal or you keep a Facebook, and it’s like, “ugh, April — that was a breakup.” But I’ll look through that. It’s all emotions. But I don’t really ever leave them, because I do think they help later."
On art and his numerous roles within it: "I give my life to art, man. I don’t feel like I’m going to be here that long. But I know my role. I know what I’m supposed to do. That’s how I feel. I exist in all these different planes, because that’s the only way I feel there is to be big anymore — you have to show the connections."