Donald Glover released his last album 3.15.20 during the pandemic and a lot of people seemingly didn’t give proper attention to it. The 40-year-old recently revealed what caused him to not give the album traditional rollout treatment and hinted at new music on the way.
Glover, musically known as Childish Gambino, spoke with Complex on Monday (Oct. 2) about life on his new farm, his Bose campaign, and, of course, music. His new Bose commercial featured “35.31,” a track from his March 2020 album which led to a conversation about 3.15.20 falling under the radar, not having cover art or song titles, as nine of the 12 songs are written as decimals.
“Yeah, I took that approach because I guess that’s what I was going through,” Glover said when asked about why he released the album that way. “People are always going to want what they want, but I have to express what I’m going through. I had just lost my father, I had just had a kid, and I was going through a lot. I was having a lot of different new experiences and that’s what I expressed.”
Donald Glover continued, speaking about how the response to the music would have been different if the approach had been different. “I think people are right. It would have garnered a different [response],” he said. “My wife’s always been like, ‘If you do punk things, you get punk results.’ And it was definitely a punk thing. I know this sounds lame, like back-talking about it, but I like that about certain things.” The Swarm co-creator likened it to Prince’s 1989 album Batman and how it can be a new discovery for fans.
“That’s cool to me. I secretly love that when you go on Spotify, it doesn’t even come up in major albums,” he said. “A kid who is just getting into me is able to log on and be like, ‘Wait, there’s a whole album in here,’ and I think that’s kind of fun. But, you know, I was also just kind of going through something. It kind of felt like my relationship with my dad was not finished, so… Yeah.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, the “Redbone” artist discussed how he was seemingly gearing up to end the Childish Gambino aspect of his career only to double back. He kept things brief but direct when asked whether he had new music on the way. “I feel like it’ll be clear sooner rather than later,” he said. “It’d be better for people to just tune in, I suppose. But I’m trying harder to not be cryptic. Tyler is always, like, ‘You’re so cryptic.’ But I’m like, ‘I’m really not.’ I just like suspense, I guess. I think it makes stuff better. But that’s just me.”
Donald Glover gave a similar response when asked a follow-up question about whether new music was coming soon or not. “You’ll see,” he said with a laugh. “You’ll see. I know that’s cryptic, but I swear to God… You know, I don’t do this sh*t for money and sh*t. There’s a famous Cam’ron clip that me and my brother love. Cam is on the radio talking to Mase or somebody, and he says, ‘Man, I do this because I’m nice. I don’t need the money. I do this because I’m nice, man.’ And I’m like, yeah, I do this because I’m nice.”
His musical alias hasn’t released a full-length project since 2020’s 3.15.20, but he has appeared on sparse features over the years. Most recently, he was a guest star on “Sticky” from the Swarm EP this past March. In August 2022, Gambino joined Black Party on “I Love You More Than You Know” and appeared on Latto’s “Sunshine” alongside Lil Wayne in March of that year.