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Wow, got you lot taking about the vid eh.
That new series of his is call Atlanta (not Atlantic) and is on BBC2, if anyone’s interested.
That’s a great piece of performance art and I’m glad it’s got people talking. That can only be s good thing. Whether it’s genius or not really doesn’t matter, as long as it serves the purpose that the artist intended it to.
Lyrically I think it’s quite weak, but the visuals are stunning. That’s just personal preference though. Artists such as Brother Ali (in particular Uncle Sam, Goddamn) and B. Dolan (Which Side Are You On) are better political lyricists in my opinion. I’d love to see a collaboration with either of those and Gambino.
Atlanta is a great. I’m keeping my eye out for a Now TV offer so I can watch the second series
Quite like it when pop tries to do something a bit different.
Personal interpretation is a weird thing. First reference came to my mind with dancing on the car was a Michael Jackson video (for Black Panther IIRC. Interesting...).
Also, if the genius word is being bandied about, who are we lauding? Glover (talented as he undoubtedly is), or whoever directed the video? Team effort?
I get that it needn’t be immediately obvious
where’s the genius in a song you have to have explained to you
You sound slightly conflicted on the issue. I guess some people (me included) would need to have some of the analogies explained simply because I'm not broadly educated enough to understand the references without help. But that is true of a huge number of artistic works. Sister Wendy would have been out of a job if we all got all the references in the painting of the revered great masters without a little help. Please don't think that I am comparing this work favourably to Shakespeare or Rembrandt etc, I'm not convinced it is 'genius' or what the threshold for genius is but just debating the notion generally.
it just sounds so weird
Excellent. Pop needs more weird.
Wouldn't it be nice, if those who slag it as crap, or just dull, posted something in reply. See this! This is what you call interesting/controversial/breaking new ground! But no, they go back to Brothers In Arms all satisfied with a bit of fancy guitar playing (I imagine) 🙂
rather than sleeping i've been clicking around the internet and found this link....might be useful/interesting to some....
https://genius.com/Childish-gambino-this-is-america-lyrics
hover over the lyrics, it'll turn yellow. click them for cultural references.
i'm now off to click about and follow the links and waste another few hours of my life.