Bando Stone and the Real World
I’ve had many thoughts and many things to say about these new couple of albums from Childish Gambino. However, the basis of this essay is a question Sean Evans (of all people) asks Donald Glover on his Hot Ones: “So the standard comedic impulse is self-flagellation while the prevailing rap posture is one of braggadocio. Are those things ever in conflict with you as someone who’s explored both genres so heavily?”
Glover’s response to that, which feels very thought-out and deliberate, is that he’s created the Childish Gambino “character” to demarcate these territories in somewhat clear terms. Even so, Childish Gambino stands somewhat apart from the generally perceived hip-hop star. With Bando Stone and the New World, however, as the carefully crafted Childish Gambino persona comes to a close, Glover’s final musical effort summarises and narrates his entire experience as a comic, musician, and individual.
As such, the character of Bando Stone—a somewhat famous musician trapped in a dystopic survival-scape—embodies the same complexes as Glover—significant among which is the push-and-pull between comic and hip-hop star. That is to say, between discomfort, maladjustment, and insecurity on the one hand and braggadocio, self-goading, and grandiloquence on the other. These come in waves and in reaction to one another over Bando Stone & the New World‘s 17 tracks and, surprisingly, also see resolution.
Throughout Childish Gambino’s career, Glover has made known his insecurity—as a person and within the industry. He (i.e., Glover, despite Bino) has been a ‘recluse’ who has time and again been reminded of how feeble and alone he is and how little he fits into the world—or indeed the many worlds—he inhabits. That is reflected in the letter in Bando, who is established as someone barely keeping himself afloat in his surroundings and constantly paranoid.
Through a dystopian plot, as introduced in the trailer to the short film, this final record attempts to narrate this insecurity, as opposed to its raw, uncomplicated exploration of the same in Atavista. Bando, like Donald (like Childish) is being hunted and every attempt at comfort and clarity keeps bringing him face-to-face with the insecurities that make him. “Survive“, for instance, is a high-angst track, where he knows that “the weather’s always changing” and confesses time and again, “I’m just tryna save my life.”
Famously in “Lithonia“, he knows (through Cody) the truth of life, which is that “nobody gives a fuck”; and he also knows in “Got to Be” that he has to keep struggling and that he “can’t stop, won’t stop”. On and on through the tracks, he keeps returning to feeling like an exposed nerve. For a large segment of the record, this remains a personality trait and something that grants him individuality rather than a plague that needs to be addressed. Only in “Cruisin“, the 12th track of 17, that he admits being on his own is “too much”, and he does need help.
Long before he does so, the listener knows that Bando is almost desperate for comfort and always looking for support—and nearly exclusively in the wrong place. That fits snugly into the Childish Gambino brand of self-loathing because the very purpose of Bando is to, perhaps, provide a closer look at the Donald Glover–complex. Akin to Troy Barnes and Glover’s general comic persona, Bando is inept and incapable—and his only survival skill is that he “can sing”. He needs to depend desperately on Jessica Allain’s character, and this dependence—as elsewhere—mistakenly becomes love.
In “Steps Beach” and “Real Love“, we see him “hope” that she “feel(s) true love”, while being sure that he wants her “in every lifetime” and that she is “ever loving”. He wants to spend his Saturday and, indeed, his life with this amorized other and hopes that she may someday “count on” him the way he can “call on” her. However, in both songs and “No Excuses“, we know as well as he does that his expectations from this equation are neither realistic nor reciprocated. She is smarter and more capable than him and will never need to depend on him like he does. This knowledge, moreover, feels very much like derision to Bando—he laments that she was “never one to pacify” him and that she gave him “cold love”.
It is to compensate for this isolation and this desperation that the hip-hop braggadocio comes into play in Bando Stone & the New World. Every time Bando becomes aware of his isolation and insecurity, it is immediately compensated for by a highly modulated, nearly always upbeat, self-congratulatory track. He begins in this vein, in keeping with his introduction in the trailer— “H3@RT$ W3RE M3@NT T0 F7¥” is all but unnecessary to the plot of the album and would have been an odd introduction to it too, had its purpose not been to introduce the Bando character as a largely feather-headed, vain, mildly-famous guy (again, like the trailer, where he says his name with great consequence and the Jessica Allian character has never heard of him).
Bando calls himself “G.O.D.” in a very different vein from “We Are God”. Nearly the entire body of the song is used to pit himself against his competition (or Childish Gambino against Drake).
Other tracks, such as “Talk My Shit” and “Yoshinoya“, are entirely brag tracks and contribute nothing to the plot of Bando Stone. They appear, instead, as balm-adjacent remedial narratives after Bando’s super-inflated ego has suffered a blow. “Talk My Shit” immediately follows “Steps Beach”, where his daydreams of “Saturday stepping” with JA’s character are smashed by her calling him “useless”. Going back to a rhythm that is recognizably Childish Gambino, Bando proudly claims, ‘I’m runnin’ up on ya / I’m there in a minute / I did it mysеlf, a million, bajillion / I made every penny” and that his competition “never got even”.
Amaarae and Flo Milli’s bits on this track, like all guests on this record, only contribute to the narrative Glover has created for Bando, bearing almost no significance to their own styles, careers, or indeed, shit. “Yoshinoya”, again, comes on the scene after “Real Love” and “In the Night“, the latter of which does seem to be an effort to fix morale but on the whole, sticks out like a sore thumb. “Yoshinoya”, though, is an all-out upbeat diss track targeted at Drake, from Donald/Bino, which comes from a place of extreme self-satisfaction. Bando/Bino/Donald is glad that he was “busy buildin’ up the life that niggas don’t have”, having spent all of “Real Love”, “hoping that [his beloved] feel love, feel real love.”
Despite all the turmoil and all the built-up and dashed hopes, however, Bando sees a resolution—and this was required to wrap up the story of Childish Gambino successfully. Bando recognizes himself as a complex person with as many failings as qualities and hopes as disappointments and realizes he needn’t compensate for it nor make fun of it. There are visible moments in Bando Stone & the New World that are steps towards this understanding and a treat to the listener who has tried to follow Bando’s story of loss and discovery.
The first time we truly interact with Bando the father is in “Can You Feel Me“, which immediately suggests calm and contentment in its very unique and fresh melody. That is his first experience with love where he receives as he gives—”Baring [his] soul completely naked” and being called for and called on. He recognizes here for the first time that there are equations in life whose “purpose is love”.
Then, in “No Excuses”, he acknowledges that his expectations from amorous or romantic equations are juvenile and affirms that he has been able to move out of them and doesn’t need them anymore. That is, however, a depressing realization, and his hopelessness at this point is palpable, especially when he says he’ll “never love again”. Once he admits he needs help in “Cruisin”, his self-actualization process begins. He admits he “need(s) to love someone” and finds a semblance of spiritual calm in “We Are God“. While recognizing the presence of the holy within him, he says twice, “Show me how / How to love someone as myself.”
I’ve noted here the repetition because this feels like a dual ask. He wants to know how to love someone as himself, flawed, hurt, and hopeful, and he also asks how to love someone like himself. He seems to get the answer to both as he moves to “Dadvocate“. He admits his pride to be “as big as Lake Tahoe” and, despite it, admits his weaknesses to his child: “If I told you I was stronger than I looked, then I’d be lying.” All of this given, he promises, “You ain’t gotta worry, baby, Daddy comin’ home soon.” Only then can he arrive at a place of comfort and security in “A Place Where Love Goes“.
I don’t know whether Childish Gambino fans are pleased with the idea of this song being the last ever Childish Gambino track. However, because of how authentically Childish Gambino sounds, this seems to be a good place to say goodbye to the character. For Bando, moreover, this is a place of reconciliation and calm. Again, He brags in this track, which is somewhat on the nose and very obviously performative—so much so that this performance is the meat and matter of any jocularity in this song rather than his own person. Once this reconciliation is arrived at, Bando, the survivor, can say, “All my life, I had to try to survive. But it is all right now. We found a place, A place where love goes’.
Once this happens, the ever-tired, ever-anxious Childish Gambino can also finally rest.