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Donald Glover may be saying goodbye to his hip-hop alter-ego, Childish Gambino, but his latest album offers a rare glimpse into another role he plays: father and family man.
Glover released his fifth and final pseudonymous record on Friday. Titled "Bando Stone & the New World," the concept album follows a musician, presumably the character of Gambino, recording music on a remote island as a catastrophe threatens to destroy the planet.
The album opens with a child's voice asking, "Are we gonna die?" Glover's voice replies, "Not tonight." The rest of the tracklist is sprinkled with references to parenthood.
Most notably, the 10th track, "Can You Feel Me," includes a feature from Glover's eldest son, Legend.
"Without your love, I wouldn't be here," Legend sings in the final verse. "Tears in my eyes, boys who was telling me lies / Daddy took me to the side, told me it was OK to cry."
Although Glover said his collaborators were skeptical about the album leaning too familial or tender, he stood his ground.
"I think grace is undervalued in the world," Glover told The New York Times. "When I put my son on my shoulders, I feel deep joy. That's real. No one on their deathbed is going to look back and say, 'Thank God I avoided being cringe.'"
Glover was initially linked to White in 2016. The pair were photographed on vacation in Hawaii while White was visibly pregnant. Shortly after, she gave birth to their first child.
The couple has remained extremely private over the years; Glover didn't even reveal Legend's name until the year after he was born, when Glover performed as Gambino at the Governors Ball music festival.
"This song is dedicated to everybody in this crowd and my young son, Legend," Glover said onstage before performing "Baby Boy," per Billboard.
While accepting the Emmy for best lead actor in a comedy for "Atlanta" in 2017, Glover revealed that he and White were expecting a second child.
"I want to thank Michelle, my partner. You love me, even how crazy I get. I want to thank my baby, my son, for just being the joy in my life," he said. "I want to thank my unborn son."
Glover confirmed the arrival of his second son, Drake, in early 2018. He kept details scarce at the time, only sharing that White was feeling "great" and "happier" post-birth.
Two years later, Glover revealed he and White had welcomed a third child "during the coronavirus."
"It was nuts," he told Michaela Coel in a conversation for GQ. "I was in the hospital bed. My son had just been born, like, an hour before and I was watching the George Floyd video. It was such a weird moment."
"I don't even know what, really, the word is to describe it," he continued. "It was just expanding: the empathy and compassion and the terror and the joy of it."
Glover also said he named his third son after his father, Donald Glover Sr., who had recently died.
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Glover cocreated and costarred in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," a new series loosely based on the 2005 action film of the same name, which premiered on Prime Video earlier this year.
During a joint interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Glover's costar, Maya Erskine, revealed that he and White had gotten married while the show was filming.
"I can say that, right?" she asked Glover.
"Yeah," he replied. "There was a day where I don't think we had to be on set until noon or 1, so, I was like, 'Can we get married today?' I got married in the morning. We had a real wedding afterwards, too. [That night, though,] we went to our favorite restaurant and then her parents and my mom were waiting for us at the house."
Several years before, Glover had gone on the record saying he didn't believe in marriage. But he told THR that over time, he realized he was "thinking about it in such a silly way."
"We eventually had an honest talk and she was like, 'I'm a traditional woman.' And when she said that, some part of me was like, 'And I want to help you be that.' Whatever she needs me to be, that makes me happy," he explained. "Especially nowadays, finding trust is so hard, and the fact that we have this and that we can even argue about it and still be like, 'But I love you' — I mean, how many people have that?"
In fact, Glover said "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" was partially inspired by his home life with White — particularly their differences and minor squabbles — lending a sense of realism to the characters' intimate dynamic.
"There's a lot of scenes that are kind of just taken from my life," he told People.
