As Childish Gambino retires, how will we remember Donald Glover's impact on music?

Donald Glover has released his fifth studio album as his musical alter ego Childish Gambino, titled Bando Stone and the New World.

The record also appears to be his final album under the moniker, as Glover has announced he's retiring his famous stage name.

Today on Commotion, culture critics Ian Kamau, Sarah-Tai Black and David Dennis Jr. join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to react to the record, and to unpack where Glover's musical legacy stands in this cultural moment.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: We have a new Childish Gambino album. It is allegedly the last Childish Gambino album, Bando Stone and the New World. How are you feeling about the new record?

Ian: I think the album's OK. It's one of those albums that seems like a playlist. It has that California summer falsetto but then also pop-punk, and then awkward trap-rap sound — like, using the N-word — a lot things going on. Overall in terms of his music, I never really get a sense of him fully as a person. My favourite project of his by far was "Awaken, My Love!". I think he does best when his songs also come with visuals…. So, I wasn't really waiting for this record necessarily, but I think it's OK.

Elamin: David Dennis, if this is to be the last Childish Gambino record, do you think this was the right way to end that part of his musical journey?

David: Yeah, it was sort of a sampling of all the Childish Gambino stuff that has led us to this moment. You get a little bit of awkward raps. You get a lot of things that sound like cover songs. It's like a buffet of all the types of music that he makes, which is in itself a sampling of all the kinds of music that influence him. And I think that's actually when he's best: cosplaying as all these other artists and other genres. He does it pretty well. His cover songs are probably some of his most popular songs … and I think this album has a lot of that. It also has a Flo Milli verse, which you can't go wrong when you have a Flo Milli verse.

Elamin: He is kind of an omnivore when it comes to music, in that way. To me, the most effective part of it is that this feels authentic. If you're talking about the idea of getting to know who Donald Glover is, he is sort of this smattering of these sounds.

Sarah-Tai: A millennial pastiche.

Elamin: Tell us how you really feel, Sarah-Tai.

Sarah-Tai: That was neither a compliment nor an insult. Just an observation.

Elamin: Fair enough. I feel like to me, the entirety of Donald Glover's career has been explorations of racial anxieties, explorations of what it means to be Black when you're not necessarily afforded the possibility of being Black, or your proximity to some larger notion of Blackness. When This is America came out, it was a big deal. It became one of the most talked-about songs of that year. This is, I think, what you were trying to get at earlier, Sarah-Tai — this idea of he's making provocative art, but it's not really provoking anybody. Is that what you're trying to get at?

Sarah-Tai: It's not that it's not provoking people; it's exactly that it is provoking people, but there's no critical thought. There's no substance behind it. I hated this video with a passion when it came out. I still do…. It felt like he was trying to have his own little Jesus Walks moment, but upgraded for the late 2010s — but it adds up to nothing. And worse than that, it's really harmful in the process. The gag of this video is that it was hailed as part of this overall pivot he was doing to this new kind of pro-Blackness, this pseudo-creative genius phase that he very much self-initiated, but it's so deeply anti-Black. It's so deeply lacking in artistic value outside of basic directing and editing skills, and it really rubs me the wrong way.

So much of our spirit, of our freedom as stolen Black folks is rooted in how we commune with each other — how we sing, how we dance, how we talk, how we engage in ritual — and historically that supposed animatedness has been used against us so much, like weaponized minstrelsy. And that's what this video feels like here, with its thematic, its narrative, its choreography. I think it's vile, especially for someone who once berated Black organizers in Atlanta for protesting instead of voting and lobbying, you know, to think that this was anyway radical or critically engaging.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.