Only a couple of days ago we wrote about how Childish Gambino is one of the few rappers redefining the state of hip-hop, and it looks like we share that opinion with some other famous musicians.
Many of us were pleasantly surprised when Childish Gambino dropped his 3rd album, Awaken My Love, only a couple of days ago. Showing a marked departure from his previous rapping ventures, Gambino’s most recent work is a throwback to the funk, soul, and R&B popularised in the ’60s and ’70s by artists like Parliament-Funkadelic.
However, it seems as though the most surprised out of all of us was The Roots’ drummer and all-around musical badass Questlove, who took to Instagram, to gush over Gambino’s record like a child talking about a new toy.
“Dude I’m so fucked up right now. I can’t even form the proper hyperbolic sentence to explain to D’angleo [sic] why I woke him up at 4am to listen to this,” he wrote, owning up to a late-night call to the Grammy-winning singer.
“I’m like—when is the last time someone sucker punched me on this level…..I mean I knew #AroundTheWorldInADay was coming & it was a left turn—I’m about to blow the wigs off music historians”
“I thought I was getting some fresh millennial 2016 hip hop shit and I got sucker punched,” he admitted. With a reference to Prince’s 1985 record Around The World In A Day which was a stylistic shift from the groundbreaking Purple Rain, Questlove goes on to commend Gambino by stating how he was expecting something pretty amazing considering Childish Gambino’s stellar track record, but not something as amazing as this.
Questlove continued his praise of the record by bringing up Sly & The Family Stone’s genre-defining 1971 album There’s A Riot Goin’ On. “The last sucker punch in black music I remember in which NOONE [sic] had a clue what was coming was Sly’s #TheresARiotGoinOn,” he continued.
With Donald Glover gracing us with his presence later this month for Falls Festival, there’s bound to be plenty of fans digging his new album. Will it be remembered years down the line in the same breath as albums by Sly & The Family Stone, or Prince? That remains to be seen, but in the meantime we can enjoy the fact that we’re apparently witnessing a huge “sucker punch” in music.
