Donald Glover is truly a jack-of-all-trades. You probably know of him by now from his role as Troy Barnes in Dan Harmon’s NBC comedy “Community” over the last several years. Or, you might know him by his hip-hop persona, Childish Gambino. Or, you might know him from his 2012 stand-up comedy special “Weirdo” on Netflix. Besides that: he got into the business writing for “30 Rock” in 2006, has had small roles in several recent film releases and is even going to make an appearance in Sony and Marvel’s upcoming collaboration of a Spider-Man movie, “Spider-Man: Homecoming”. You get the picture. This guy is everywhere. What you should be paying attention to, though, is what he is doing now.
Glover’s new show, “Atlanta”, on FX, is really good. I mean really, really good. Its only three episodes into the season at the moment so if you haven’t seen it yet, that’s OK. It’s not too late, my friends. It’s still early, you can still get in on the ground floor. “Atlanta” is a show about three guys from the titular city who are in the early stages of trying to move through the local music scene. The rap scene, to be specific. Glover is Earn Marks, a broke Princeton dropout who works as some kind of salesman soliciting out of airports and who crashes at his kind-of girlfriend’s place and occasionally watches over the baby daughter they have together. He catches wind of a new local rapper making waves named Paper Boi and quickly realizes it’s his cousin. Naturally, he tries to catch up with fam and float the idea of managing him.
The show is funny, but it’s at its best when it subtly unveils some it’s more dramatic material. Quick example: It feels like rappers have always been held to some sort of standard to be ‘real’ or ‘street’, or some kind of mixture of these concepts. It’s not a new notion by any means, but rings true in this era of the genre maybe more than ever (especially, it seems, in a place like Atlanta). In an age when every rapper, up-and-coming or established, seems to insist on how ‘hard’ they are, can they all really be telling the truth? How much of it is an act? Or worse, how much of it is life imitating art, instead of the other way around? That is one of the many ideas “Atlanta” seems to passively float around, along with thoughts on the jailing system, the odd detachedness that can result from celebrity (even if it’s just local), and the hyper-masculinity around these communities that cement heavy stigma around any sexuality that isn’t hetero.
“Atlanta” is Glover’s baby through and through. He is the show’s main creative force, writing the episodes himself whilst serving as executive producer. He is from the Atlanta area, which is maybe why it all feels so authentic when you’re watching it. Which is something you should definitely do, if I hadn’t said it already. Watch this show. Watch “Atlanta”. It’s truly impressive television. It’s probably (definitely) better than whatever else you’re tuning into instead. You can find it on FX, Tuesdays at 10 p.m., 9 p.m. central time.
