Top Ten Songs of 2011 – #8
Childish Gambino’s full-length debut, Camp, is the best rap album I’ve heard in years.
Donald Glover is a gifted rapper and an even more gifted lyricist, spitting hilarious, often thought-provoking, rhymes over meaty beats that belie the lack of star power behind the production.
What really sets him apart is his subject matter, which generally centers around how unlikely it is that a guy like him (an “Oreo” who has more in common with suburban whites than blacks from the hood) could be such a terrific rapper.
That cerebral perspective is present on most of Camp‘s tracks, but it really blew me away during the lengthy monologue that closes out ‘That Power,’ the album’s final track.
Glover tells a tale of summer camp romance that serves as an origin story for his Childish Gambino rap persona. His writing and delivery of the spoken word coda is brilliant, making the album leap from great poetry to great literature.
All these haters
See you later
All that I could do
But you dont even feel me though
I know you know I know you got that power
That power
Oh, oh oh
[Verse 1]
So CG but a nigga stay real
Though I’m fly I’m ill I’m running shit
3-points, field goal
Rappers used to laugh like I tripped and fell
Cause I don’t stunt a gold cross like I Christian bail
Yeah, they starin’ at me jealous cause I do shows bigger
But your looks don’t help, like an old gold digger
Uncool, but lyrically I’m a stone cold killer
So it’s 400 blows to these Truffaut niggas
Yeah, now that’s the line of the century
Niggas missed it, too busy
They lyin’ ’bout penitentiary
Man, you ain’t been there
Nigga you been scared
And I’m still living single like Synclaire
Lovin’ white dudes who call me white and then try to hate
When I wasn’t white enough to use your pool when I was 8
Stone Mountain you raised me well
I’m stared at by Confederates but hard as hell
Tight jeans penny loafers, but I still drink a Bodine
Staying on my me shit, but hated on by both sides
I’m just a kid who blowing up with my father’s name
And every black “you’re not black enough”
Is a white “you’re all the same”
Mm Food like Rapp Snitch Knishes
Cuz its oreos, twinkies, coconuts, delicious
How many gold plaques you want inside your dining room?
I said I want a full house
They said, “You got it dude!”
[Hook]
[Verse 2]
Holla, holla, holla, holla at yo boy
Like yo dad when he’s pissed off
Got flow, I could make a cripple crip walk
Niggas’ breath stank, all they do is shit talk
People want a real man, I made ’em wait this long
Maybe if he bombs, he’ll quit and keep actin’
And save paper like your aunt does with McDonald napkins
How’d it happen? Honesty did it
See all of my competition at the bodies exhibit
Yeah I bodied the limits and I deaded them fakers
Motherfuck if you hate it, cremated them haters
So, my studio be a funeral
Yeah, this is our year, oh you didn’t know?
Uh, yeah I’m killin’ you, step inside the lion’s den
Man I’m hov if the ‘O’ was an ‘I’ instead
On stage with my family in front of me
I am what I am: everything I wanna be
[Spoken word outro]
Meet Me In Montauk 
Another cool song from this guy, and that story at the end is compelling.