Childish Gambino on Vinyl: Where to Start and Where to Go Next

Donald Glover was three careers deep before most people heard him rap. Born in 1983 and raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia, he finished a dramatic writing degree at NYU in 2006 and was hired onto the writing staff of 30 Rock at twenty three. Then came Community, where he played Troy Barnes from 2009 to 2014, and then Atlanta, the FX series he created, wrote for and starred in from 2016 through 2022. The rap name arrived in the middle of all that, pulled out of a Wu-Tang Clan name generator, and for a while it looked like a side project.

It did not stay one. Across five studio albums Childish Gambino moved from dense rapping to psychedelic funk to something closer to widescreen pop, and the throughline is Ludwig Goransson, the composer Glover met scoring Community. Goransson co-produced the debut in its entirety and is still on the credits thirteen years later, which is why the catalog holds together even when the genres do not.

We carry six Childish Gambino records, close to the whole run. Here is how they fit together, in order.

Camp - The Major Label Debut

Camp came out on Glassnote on November 15, 2011, a few weeks after Glover signed to the label and four mixtapes into the project. He wrote and produced it with Goransson at Hyperion Sound in Los Angeles, with Questlove on drums and Erik Arvinder writing the string arrangements that give "Bonfire" and "Heartbeat" their scale. It is the most confrontational record here, and the one critics split over.

Why it's worth purchasing

• The origin point: everything the catalog becomes is audible here in rougher form.
• Live strings and live drums on a 2011 rap record, which is rarer than it sounds.
• This 180g pressing gives the low end and the string sections the headroom the CD never had.

Because the Internet - The Concept Record

Because the Internet followed on Glassnote on December 10, 2013, made largely in a rented Los Angeles mansion the crew called The Temple, with house rules that included no shoes and no posting. Four days before release Glover put out a seventy two page screenplay meant to be read alongside the album, with the short film Clapping for the Wrong Reasons as its prelude. The original cover was an animated GIF of his face fuzzing out, and the physical edition splits the album into seven acts. Chance the Rapper, Jhene Aiko, Problem and Azealia Banks appear; Stefan Ponce, Christian Rich and Thundercat produce alongside Goransson.

Why it's worth purchasing

• "3005" and "Sweatpants" are the songs that turned the project into a headline act.
• The seven act structure was built for sides, so the vinyl sequencing is the intended one.
• A genuine concept album with a screenplay attached, and the collector's pick of the Glassnote three.

Kauai - The Short One

Kauai arrived on October 3, 2014, one day after the STN MTN mixtape, and Glover framed the two as a single project continuing the story he started on Camp. Where STN MTN is the Atlanta half, Kauai is the sunlit one: short, sung far more than rapped, with "Sober" and "Late Night in Kauai" at its center. It is the hinge between the rap records and the funk record that came next.

Why it's worth purchasing

• The first clear evidence he would rather sing, two years before "Awaken, My Love!" made that official.
• Short enough to be a one sitting listen, which suits a single LP better than most of his work.
• A companion piece rather than a leftovers set, so it plays as its own thing.

"Awaken, My Love!" - The Funk Turn

"Awaken, My Love!" landed on Glassnote on December 2, 2016, and there is almost no rapping on it. Glover and Goransson built a psychedelic soul and funk record instead, debuting it live months early at Pharos, a three night event in Joshua Tree in September 2016. The lineage is stated outright: the sleeve, photographed by Ibra Ake with Giannina Oteto in a beaded headdress, answers Funkadelic's Maggot Brain, and "Riot" samples Funkadelic's "Good to Your Earhole" with Bootsy Collins and George Clinton in the credits. Gary Clark Jr. plays guitar on "The Night Me and Your Mama Met." If this is the door you came in through, our funk starter guide covers what it is reaching back to.

Why it's worth purchasing

• "Redbone" and "Me and Your Mama" are the two songs most people own this record for.
• The most analog sounding thing in the catalog, and the one that most rewards a real system.
• A Funkadelic homage on the sleeve and in the samples, so it shelves naturally beside the 1970s Parliament and Funkadelic pressings.

Atavista - The Album He Finished Twice

Atavista came out on RCA on May 13, 2024, and it is the finished version of 3.15.20, the 2020 album whose tracks were titled as timestamps. Glover said that record had gone out rushed at the start of the pandemic and that Atavista was what he had meant to release, under the title he had meant to use. He resequenced and remixed it and kept the guests: Ariana Grande, 21 Savage, Kadhja Bonet and Ink, with Young Nudy and Summer Walker added. Three 3.15.20 tracks including "Feels Like Summer" are gone, and one of them grew into a song on the next album.

Why it's worth purchasing

• The only version of this album with proper song titles and the sequencing he wanted.
• Reworked mixes by Glover with DJ Dahi and Goransson, so it is a different listen from 3.15.20, not a repackage.
• 3.15.20 was pulled from streaming days before this came out, so the physical copy is the durable one.

Bando Stone and the New World - The Last One

Bando Stone and the New World arrived on RCA on July 19, 2024, and Glover has been clear that it closes the book on the name. He first said the next Gambino album would be the last back in 2017, and confirmed the plan in the spring of 2024. It is the widest record he has made, moving between rap, rock, Afrobeat and gospel, and it is framed as the soundtrack to a film of the same name.

Why it's worth purchasing

• The final Childish Gambino album, which makes it the bookend of the shelf.
• The broadest stylistic range of any record here, and the clearest picture of him as a producer rather than a rapper.
• An opaque black colored pressing rather than a standard black.

If You Like Childish Gambino

The same handful of names keeps coming up across these records, and we carry all of them.

• Tyler, the Creator: the closest parallel career, another rapper who took over his own production and arrangements and then left rap behind for a while.
• Anderson .Paak: the same live band instinct and the same refusal to choose between singing and rapping.
• Thundercat: he plays on Because the Internet, and his own albums are the deepest end of this same Los Angeles funk pool.
• Mac Miller: the obvious companion to Camp, and his later records take the same turn toward live players and sung vocals.
• Earl Sweatshirt: the other direction out of the same era, if you want the writing stripped down instead of built up.

Where to Start

Start with "Awaken, My Love!" if you want the record that changed what the name meant, Because the Internet if you want the songs and the concept, and Camp if you want to hear him before either. Atavista and Bando Stone are where to go next. Our Hip-Hop and R&B collections cover both sides of what he draws on, and everything we stock by him sits in one place, in the Childish Gambino collection.