Voice, or maybe former, of the "middle-class black kids" Childish Gambino dropped his long-awaited "Awaken, My Love!" This album has been on every Gambino fan's mind since he dropped that app called Pharos back in the summertime. Fans sat idly watching this app hoping it was Childish's way of dropping a new album, but of course, they were disappointed but not completely disappointed. The app revealed an upcoming event that CG was holding down in Joshua Tree. Even though this wasn't an album drop, it was in fact evidence that new music was sure to come.

After a few months and a few leaks from dedicated fans, we are finally face-to-face with CG's newest creation "Awaken, My Love." And after waiting and waiting, hearing some tidbits from singles such as Redbone and Me and Your Mama, I finally got to listen to this album...And I'm not that much of a fan. This isn't much of a surprise for me, being that I'm what some would call "a hipster." I honestly can't help it. When I discover music from an artist and I go through their albums, I always find myself falling in love with the older material. With Childish Gambino, this isn't the first.

I knew about Childish before he was Childish and when he was "the black kid from Derrick Comedy", it wasn't until he hit our living room tv's, acting in Community when I found out he was also a rapper. A good one at that. My first ever song from Childish was Freaks and Geeks off of his EP. Not a lot of people enjoyed his flow and what he was saying, but I found talent and honesty in his words. I was able to relate to this man from so many points of views and he even inspired me to get out and try rapping (obviously my career never took off, but check my sound cloud, though.).

From some of his earlier works to Camp, I was on the Childish Gambino hype train, but then he started experimenting. First With Royalty taking a step into Gangsta rap or Southern rap, then Kuai and STN MTN. These albums were different, but I still accepted them. I was very critical but accepting. The last album which had some replay value was, Because the Internet. That song still could have been called a rap album even though some songs were pretty odd, such as Earth: The Oldest Computer. But even so, even after not liking some songs at first, I kept coming back to that album. I even read the script that was supposed to be the side by side story for the album.

So what's wrong with Awaken, My Love!? Well, It's just that I don't care about it. One thing Gambino fans love to throw out is that he's trying to grow as an artist. A lot of "rap" (quotation marks because they don't want to be called Rap artists) artists these days want to grow, I've heard it from the rap group Injury Reserve to Post Malone, they don't want to be tied down to a genre, and I get that but for me I feel like you should probably try to stay a bit in the genre you started in or at least have a reason for the "music change up"

What I learned with art is that when you make a choice to do something in your piece, it has to have some sort of reason. But it doesn't mean that everything you do has to be a well-thought-out chess move; Art can be fun and liberating, but if you're trying to sell that art piece whilst having fun you kind of have to make sure it's, for lack of a better term, good.

Going back on track: Let's analyze a bit of CG's new album. Before I go through some songs, mostly my favorites; The album has a groovy feel to it, reeaall 70's going on. This is already a put off for me because, personally I'm not one for groovy, 70's music, but the main point is, why? What's the point of doing this? It's not really much of a "revolutionary" move. It can be, not a lot of people make music like this anymore and he does bring some groove back but even so it's not incredible.

The songs that I'm actually taking from this album are the two singles, Redbone and Me and Your Mama. Redbone just sets a really chill vibe. I feel like CG is trying to capture that in all of his songs, but this song just does it so well. I feel like I can get lost in the instrumentals, especially around the ending. "Me and Your Mama" is the opposite; There's just so much soul and passion in this song. I find myself being deeply moved by CG when he hits that high note. It's just this rush of excitement, but also chill, that just comes with this song. The songs that aren't singles but have gained my attention are the songs "Baby Boy", "The Night Me and Your Mama Met", and "Stand Tall". Baby boy's melancholy and soothing instrumentals do what "Redbone" does to me, it's just relaxing and is just groove done right. With "The Night Me and Your Mama Met", I feel like this is what I meant with a conscience choices being done tactically. The instrumentals just write the title itself, the slow groove, the female vocals, and the guitar riff; We just imagine a dance floor and two people holding hands slow dancing sensually. CG chose those instrumentals just so he could paint this dance scene and just fill us with the love that's happening with this couple. "Stand Tall" is very reminiscent to old CG vocals, vocals that can be found in songs like "Situations" off of the STN MTN mixtape. This was the type of vocals I was expecting from CG and it was great to actually hear it again. He kind of loses me when the auto-tune kicks in but it's still something I was able to enjo, especially with his positive message that's laced within the lyrics.

With the rest of the songs, I just felt like they had no purpose or didn’t really have much meaning. I read the lyrics, understood where they were coming from and all I was able to think about was how I already heard this before. I already heard about how awful some people are when you have money, how we need to come together because we’re in a time where peace is most needed, or how the California life can ruin you (also California is my LEAST favorite. That voice CG was doing was just awful and annoying and I didn’t even find a purpose on why he was doing that voice.) Nothing CG inputted in those songs was really interesting. It was just typical groove music with nothing new to say. Honestly if you’re into it, then more power to you or if you’re cool with acting as if you’re actually into 70’s funk just because it’s Childish Gambino, once again, more power to you, but for me this just wasn’t enough.

I’m actually down for the artist not being trapped and being able to publish whatever they want, no matter the genre. I’ve seen some talented underground rappers and indie bands turn into copies because they were forced to create art with the same formula as everyone else. I just believe if you do something that’s “out there” you gotta just give some of your listeners a purpose on why you made this change or present it in a way where we don’t care because it sounds freaking good. I’m still supporting Childish Gambino, but I believe this critique had to just be said.