Donald Glover is an artist who is always juggling several projects at once. He’s currently co-creator/co-executive producer on the upcoming Prime Video series Mr. & Mrs. Smith, co-writing the Star Wars film Lando alongside his brother Stephen Glover and could possibly appear in the Community movie. Even with all that going on, he’s also still working on music for his next Childish Gambino project. In his usual mysterious fashion, the Emmy winner told Complex on Monday that “it’ll be clear sooner rather than later. It’d be better for people to just tune in, I suppose.”
“I’m trying harder to not be cryptic,” he said. “Tyler [The Creator] is always, like, ‘You’re so cryptic.’ But I’m like, ‘I’m really not.’ I just like suspense, I guess. I think it makes stuff better. But that’s just me.”
The “This is America” rapper revealed that he’s exploring a “naturally functional” sound, noting that “when something is actually truly functional and it’s easy to get to, I love that.”
“I love it when we make something and I’m like, ‘Oh, I know exactly what this is for. This is for Monday Night Football,’” Glover said. “You know, that kind of thing. Like, ‘This is for this kind of Instagram post.’ I like all that shit.”
As for what;s currently inspiring him, he cites Cleo Sol and “The Secret Recipe” by Lil Yachty and J. Cole as music he’s listening to right now. He also praised the new wave of female rappers and weighed in on all the talk about the genre not topping the charts this year.
“I think the women are killing it because they have narratives. I feel like a lot of the guys, it’s harder to have interesting new narratives now,” the Grammy winner said. “Also, I feel like, in general...I don’t want to say ‘rap is dead,’ it’s just, it’s not able to grow the way it was growing before. It’s just not able to. It’s a very different time. Who’s making it and why they’re making it is very different, too.”
This is normally where I’d drop a release date about the Atlanta star’s next project, but with Donald Glover you literally never know what’s next, so I guess you should just stay tuned and something new will mysteriously appear out of nowhere at some point.