Childish Gambino - Biography
Childish Gambino is the moniker for Donald Glover, an American rapper, producer, writer, comedian, and actor currently on the television show Community. Although Glover has made a name for himself both on screen and off at the writers table, and has released numerous albums and mixtapes as Childish Gambino, many of his fans don't realize they are the same person.
Born in California, but raised in Georgia, Glover graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Dramatic Writing in 2006. During his time at NYU, Glover joined Derrick Comedy, an Internet sketch comedy group featuring Dominic Dierkes, DC Pierson, Dan Eckman and Maggie McFadden. Their 2006 sketch, Bro Rape, was one of the earliest viral YouTube videos. Glover's work with Derrick Comedy led to a writing stint on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and a staff writer position for three seasons of the hit television series, 30 Rock, for which he won a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Series in 2009. Also in 2009, Glover began his current role as ex-football player Troy Barnes on Community.
Glover's first one hour stand-up comedy special aired on Comedy Central in March 2010. That July, he recieved the Rising Comedy Star award at the Just For Laughs festival in July 2010. In November 2011 premiered "Donald Glover: Weirdo," a one-hour comedy special recorded at Union Square Theatre in New York. The special was released on CD and DVD in April 2012.
The Childish Gambino moniker was born out of the Wu-Tang Clan's online name generator. Prior to signing with a label, Childish Gambino released four full albums (2002’s The Younger I Get, 2004’s Sick Boi, 2008’s Poindexter, and 2010’s Culdesac), two mixtapes (2010’s I Am Just A Rapper series), and the 2011 EP featuring “Freaks And Geeks.” On November 15, 2011, Gambino's album CAMP was released on Glassnote Records, the first time one of his albums was available in a physical format. For CAMP, Glover made a conscious decision to work with longtime Ludwig Goransson and to write and record all the music on the album, skipping any big name hip-hop producers or guest appearances (except for Questlove who played drums on the track "That Power"). On July 4, 2012, Gambino released the Royalty mixtape online which, contrary to CAMP, featured many guests including RZA, Ghostface Killah, Beck, and Tina Fey, among others.
So far in 2013, Glover had a guest appearance on the HBO show Girls and performed as Childish Gambino at the Big Day Out festival in Australia. He is currently working on the follow up to CAMP.
