Why Does Every Black Actor Gotta Rap Some? I Don’t Know, All I Know Is I’m the Best One

History is littered with actors who have tried their hand at music with little result because mostly they have all sucked massively. So it is easy to write all the future ones off as future sale bin with the Joey Lawrence, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Meadow Soprano. But I do not know if ringtone rappers have set the hip-hop so low that even a comedian can step over it, but Camp by Donald Glover of Community is one of the best rap albums of the year.

Recording as Childish Gambino (a name he got from a Wu-Tang Clan name generator) stays clear of overused clichés like auto-tune that have plagued rap on top forty station in recent years, there are no big name guest appearances (his slick singing style alleviates any need to bring on Bruno Mars to sing his hooks) or the flashy producer of the moment. Childish Gambino kicks it old school as an unabashed backpack rapper and even names a song after the hip-hop lifestyle even if Backpack features a much harder delivery then any A Tribe Called Quest track.

Camp is an unfortunate name for the album for a comedian trying to play it straight because there is nothing campy about the album. The title instead seems to refer to the noun where children go for the summer as there is plenty of themes about childhood and growing up throughout the album with Glover seems guilty for being black and growing up with a father. Topics like this make Childish Gambino the most boisterous self loather since Kanye West. But really the only topic he likes more is, um, how do I put this without annoying my censors; the completion of intercourse on things.

Much like Community which is constantly throwing pop culture references, Gambino has as many of his own on that rival the number on any Beastie Boys referencing everything from Rugrats to Mumford & Sons to Human Centipede (eww). As great a wordsmith Glover is, his high delivery style can get grating at times and the likeability of most songs are determined by how good the beat is (highlighted by standout track Bonefire), but others are only mediocre at best and nowhere as creative as his Adele sample of Melt Your Heart to Stone for his song Do You Like off his Culdesac mixtape.

Song to Download – Bonfire

Camp gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.