Album Review: Childish Gambino - STN MTN/Kauai

Late last year, Donald Glover slid in with an impressive, complex album that even surprised me. Recording under his rap moniker Childish Gambino, Because The Internet, at first glance, was a post-Yeezus, post-Drake “arty” rap album that also included singing.

But upon further (and more careful) listens, it revealed itself to be so much more than that.

Glover as a performer is a polarizing figure. He wants to be taken seriously as a rapper, yet his past as a writer on “30 Rock” and an actor on “Community” continually come. His affect is also one that can leave you scratching your head. There was the series of photos he shared last year, written on hotel stationary, detailing his anxieties and struggles with depression.

Then there was his incredibly long sequence of tweets from this summer in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson.

Glover has returned, as promised in an interview with Hot 97’s Peter Rosenberg, releasing both a mixtape produced by DJ Drama, and an EP made available via iTunes. They are supposed to be played sequentially, with the mixtape (STN MTN) seguing into the EP (Kauai.) That part of this idea actually works, and it works well—specifically in the final moments of the mixtape’s closing track, leading into the very first moment on the EP. But the problem with this dual release is that it showcase both the best and worst of Glover as an artist.

Glover’s super arty, serious blend of hip-hop doesn’t really lend itself well to the idea of the modern “mixtape,” including the nearly satirical mixtape DJ drops—in this case, DJ Drama continuing to yell “Gangsta Grizills” at the beginning of many of the tape’s 11 tracks.

However, as jarring as it is at first to here Glover rapping over some more “traditional” style beats—traditional in comparison to what is used on Because The Internet—this actually works. And for the most part, it works well. There are, of course, the usual pitfalls of a hip-hop mixtape—DJ drops, out of context clips played here and there, skits (the “Childish Gambino @ The Atrium” goes on exponentially longer than it needs to”) and then the obligatory intro piece, which is seamlessly connected into the first two songs.

At times, STN MTN (or “stone mountain”) serves as a bit of a love letter to Glover’s home state Georgia—specifically Atlanta, and the Stone Mountain suburb. As a “celebrity” performer, it’s easy to forget that Glover is not just another artist from one of the coasts, and the tape attempts to remind people of his southern roots.

Lyrically, Glover flexes his humor, his cleverness, and a rarely used self-aggrandizing tendency on the STN MTN portion of this dual release—see the lyric, “From that weird ass little kid to this ballin' ass grown man,” that he drops within the first track on the mixtape. This coming from the same guy who closed out his last album with what could be looked at as a thinly veiled cry for help.

The STN MTN portion of the efforts ends with Glover saying, “And then I woke up,” a line that serves as both a call-back to the first line of the tape (“I had a dream I ran Atlanta”) and an intro to the opening track from the Kauai EP—“Sober”: “And now that it’s over, I’ll never be sober. I couldn’t believe but now I’m so high.”

Musically speaking, there’s an incredible contrast between the street hip-hop aesthetic of the mixtape, and the return to the Because The Internet-production values of Ludwig Gorasson—twinkling electric piano keys, electric guitar licks, smooth drum machine beats, and post-Yeezus atmospherics.

Overall, the ideas on the EP seem like they are slightly more developed, and that’s probably because they benefit from actual studio time and a producer behind the boards. There’s a sense of urgency that runs throughout the course of the mixtape, as if Glover was attempting to push himself and prove to someone (who, though?) that he needs to be taken seriously as a rapper.

Taken as a whole, the idea is incredibly impressive and admirable. However, there are moments when the entire concept falters and stalls. Kauai specifically suffers from the seemingly random cameos from celebrity child Jaden Smith—who performs some kind of spoken word poetry after two songs have reached their natural conclusion. I half expected him to begin saying things that have appeared on his Twitter feed, like “How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren’t even real?”

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this entire project is Glover’s inclusion of a “hidden track” buried within his website. The Kauai EP closes with what is called a “Beach Picnic Version” of his single “3005.” Within the context of the downloaded EP, it is mostly just an instrumental backing track. Glover’s verses were found in an a capella track online, and, because the internet, someone put the pieces together.

Despite the moments throughout that are not as successful as others, STN MTN/Kauai serves as a reminder to those that may not realize Donald Glover’s talent. Because The Internet, as confounding as it could be at times, is one of the few albums in 2013 I regularly return to, just because I notice something new about it with each listen. This mixtape and EP show Glover is still growing as a performer, and attempting to find the right balance with his abilities as both a rapper and a singer.  

STN MTN is available now, for free, via mixtape clearing house Datpiff. Kauai is available as a digital EP from iTunes.