Star Wars buff everywhere lease out a corporate whoop when Disney announced Donald Glover would be play a younger version of Lando Calrissian in the approaching Han Solo film . His outsize good luck charm and sly wit makes him a seemingly perfect burst for the galaxy ’s boldest gambler . But if you want to take your excitement about Glover becoming a space hooker to the next stratum , you demand to heed to his recent retro - Casimir Funk record album .
I ’ve been listening toAwaken , My Love!with alarming frequency since it total out lately last class . It stunned me with the way it absolutely harkens back to the psychedelic funk / soul of the 1970s , sounding eerily like turn a loss tapes from Parliament / Funkadelic sessions . Musically , the album marked an abrupt break with the snarky , self - conscious rap Glover has done previously under the name of Childish Gambino . That earlier euphony was conceptually tether to the present but Awaken , My Love ! stretches back to preceding song - forms . I should n’t have been surprised by the alteration - up because Donald Glover has always storm me .
My human relationship with Glover ’s originative output over the years has been ovoid . His sketch clowning work on YouTube fly under my radar until my first brush with his work on Community and , as well , I only receive out that he spell for 30 Rock after I ’d seen him play Troy Barnes . too soon on , I did the disservice of equate Glover to Dave Chappelle and wrote him off as the sort of comedian that non - black people liked to care because doing so made them feel cool . But , theemotionally raw notes he posted to Instagram after impart Communitymade me concerned for him and I inquire at what was churning inside of him . Those greenback reminded me of Chappelle ’s unexpected loss from Comedy Central , spur in part by the turmoil generated by the latent hostility of not knowing for sure why masses are laughing at a black performer .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0_U8ca4040
Glover got really restrained on the boob tube front after Community , a secrecy that end when his FX series Atlanta debut last year . The show became a hit , thanks to its undercurrent of sardonic everyday absurdism . Each sequence feel like a miniature work of comedy brilliance , animated by tiny mechanisms that you ca n’t see and it matt-up like Glover was finally showing the “ who I really am ” mentioned in those Instagram notes . Atlanta won me over big metre last summertime and the December sack of Awaken , My Love ! put Glover on a list of creators I ’d never dare ignore .
Awaken , My Love ! sense like it ’s also channeling that “ who I really am ” Department of Energy but from a different vector . What amazed me the most about the album on first listen was how spot - on it sounded as something trying to pay homage to a pop - music idiom from yesteryear . When I mouth about it with friends of the same long time , I mused that we were the last genesis to try a new Marvin Gaye song introduction on the radio . We get word the last drumbeats of funk and disco at schoolhouse dances before tap take dominance . Yet Glover is capable to enchant that same somebody - music feeling without having experienced it at first hand in its original temporal circumstance . But , most importantly , this music is n’t just a set of preternatural George Clinton or Teddy Pendergrass impressions .
What Glover and his musical cohorts are accomplish on Awaken , My Love ! is multivalent , blending mimicry , recontextualization and connect the past tense to the nowadays . Take a strain like “ Have Some Love ” , the 2d track on the album . It ’s one of the tunes that harbors a grueling Sly and the Family Stone influence — along with strains of Funkadelic — in how it centers the importance of black common people being there for each other . That theme was coarse in the 1960s and seventies when excitement for voting right and public school integrating brought black people into conflict with police and fellow citizens . The clock time and law of the terra firma have switch but “ Have Some Love ” recognizes the want for communal ego - love in a system of rules historically design to delegitimize bootleg lives is as urgent as ever .
Another Sung dynasty cry “ Zombies ” sound like kitsch at first , with its languid opening rhythms and hard involve vocals . But it quickly becomes cleared that the birdsong ’s a form of semi - autobiographical showbiz fable , which think people being stalked by not - active entities who want to syphon their critical energies . Several other songs like “ Boogieman ” and “ Riot ” also tap into the socially aware saltation music vein .
What does all of this have to do with Star Wars ? Listening to Awaken , My Love ! made me realize that Glover could do the same matter — mimic , recontextualize and personalize — with the use of Lando Calrissian . When actors take on theatrical role that have been originated by others , they can pick out to analyze what came before or not . Either choice is valid . But , with Awaken ’s mojo in my ears , now I experience like there ’s no way Glover could n’t have encounter with Billy Dee Williams calendar month ago . His unconscious process , at least as I envision it , demand a sojourn to the source of cool whence Lando sprang . citizenry ’s expectations will belike be that Glover will work in some Billy Dee into his version of Lando but he ’s also incur to make the role his own . His approach shot to 1970s psychedelic funk — which was on the air of black wireless stations when Star Wars was coming out — presents a substantial type that he can do on the dot that .
It ’s equally important to notice the variant of Afrofuturism in the essence metaphor of “ Zombies . ” If you ’re fail to play Lando Calrissian , getting into an Afrofuturist mindset — which suppose how sinister citizenry subsist in risky fiction — feel like a worthful mental drill . Remember , Lando ’s a hombre on the periphery of an oppressive power structure — someone who gets by however he can , even if those methods induce some ego - abomination . It ’s not hard to picture Lando Calrissian singing some of the lyrics on this album , like this from “ Zombies ” …
We ’re come up out to get you
We ’re all so happy we forgather you
We ’re eating you for profit
There is no way to stop it
You will find there is no safe place to hide , hide
( That ’s right , that ’s right )
or these lines from “ Terrified ” …
There ’s a bottom to the top of a moment
You wo n’t always be around
Catch a nigga add up quickly behind you
People want you underground
Do you misbehave ?
Haunt you to your grave
I ’m buy the farm to eat you alive
The yowls and yelps tuck into and under Awaken , My Love ! ’s verses and instrumental solos are fun atavistic touch but also evidence to Glover ’s uncanny power to dwell retro mannerism with mod sensibilities . His sartorial demonstration in public appearances also answer as signifiers to his originative method acting .
seem at his performance of “ Redbone , ” and dig on how his shirtless torso , bare foot , and glittery pant immediately call forth the idea of an previous - school psyche singer . Peepthe chocolate brownish velvet tux he wore to the Golden Globes , which may as well have been straight out of the ‘ 70s . The Day - Glo stagewear he ’s got on in this concert performance of “ Me and Your Mama ” call back to the anything - goes scifi outfits of Parliament / Funkadelic .
It might have all been subconscious coincidence but Donald Glover ’s been get quick to be Lando for a long damn time . All the work he ’s been doing in the last few years suggests that he ’s going to be the baddest hustler the galaxy ’s ever hear .
Donald GloverLando CalrissianMusicStar warfare
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