It must be a funny time to be Donald Glover right now, but the man himself isn't smiling. Worn down by a combination of jet lag and the necessary evil of having to promote his second album (in his Childish Gambino guise), Glover slumps in a chair in the offices of his London record company. The 30-year-old Californian comic/actor/rapper - still best known for playing Troy in cult TV show Community - is here to discuss ...because the internet, his latest concept LP of existential rap. As well as a premise that would make Douglas Coupland proud and an accompanying short film Clapping For The Wrong Reasons, the album's central theme is how social media fails to accurately reflect reality. "With Instagram all the nice stuff looks bland," says Glover. "It's the same things: food, sunsets, girls taking pictures with their girls, boys taking pictures with their boys.

And it's not bad, but it's all the same. I want to be hit with everything." To mark the arrival of Glover's awe-inspiring Deep Web tour in London here are his thoughts on a life lived online.

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GQ: One of the album's key themes is the duplicity of life on social media. What's the fakest thing you seen a rapper post on instagram?

Donald Glover: It's not rappers, it's just humanity. I guess everyone puts up only certain parts: it's a curated life, but we think that it is real. It's the way we want people to see ourselves rather than how we really are.

**You've said you've been reading a lot of

Kierkegaard recently - what else have you found interesting?**

Lately I've just been listening to a lot of stuff, mainly Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. I just feel like he's speaking to us. The way he talks about how "We can't stop livin'". The experience he's talking about is so universal but in a weird way specific to our plight. I just think it works.

With Marvin there's also something about pursuing your own vision: he tried to become an American footballer at one point...

Right. He's like, "I wanted to do this." That's what people don't understand: there's no low if there's no high. And people still don't really get that!

Given you want to see more varied experience represented on social media, what do you think about the trend for selfies at funerals?

That's a cool idea. Pretty funny. That's getting to the point where you start to put up other stuff. Getting to the point where

[social media] is more of a document of what's going on. I want people to read my timeline like my life - because it is. I see the internet differently from how a lot of people do. I'm leaving behind something that people will look at - whatever the electronic equivalent of a paper trail is.

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Who do you consider the gold standard of musicians online?

I heard Geoff Barrow has a very good Twitter [@jetfury]. He goes in! I think he's dope. Louis CK used to do that but I think now he has a different outlet with his show. They both just do what they think is the most fun at the moment. At the end of the day, the people who try to stop you doing things can't do that for hardly any time on the spectrum of eternity. I try and think: "Does it matter? Am I going to remember this in ten years? Am I going to remember this in a month? Is this going to make things better for my kid, if I have a kid? Do I care?"

Chance The Rapper told GQ that you gave him some great business advice. What was it?

You got to work for your passion. I guess I'm against bosses a little bit. I don't want to have a boss, a label, mostly because they don't share my passion. Just on a level of: that's their business and their business is to make money. There's nothing wrong with that but that's not what I want. I only want people more invested in me passionately so that they will make unwise decision sometimes.

What are you particularly proud of artistically which made no business sense?

The film [Clapping For The Wrong Reasons]. The film didn't make anything. That movie was really expensive. I didn't make any money of it, there's no advertisement and it's not linked to YouTube. I just made a film! The cost? It was a lot. It was filmed on actual film and we filmed an hour and a half. Ask any film person and they'll give you a rough estimate.

Did your co-star Abella Anderson tell you any outlandish stories from her time in porn?

She didn't tell any crazy stories but she's funny. We have a bunch of fun audio talking about how much she loved the food at Dunkin'

Donuts. She loves the breakfast sandwiches, the egg white omelettes. She's a down home girl. She's just chilled, a really cool person. The reason we liked her so much is that we all felt like we knew her in the back of our heads because she's really good at making dudes feel like they have a girlfriend.

We've actually had questions on the site about the shearling jacket you've been wearing for your press tour...

It's APC. I like how functional how it is. I'm not a fashion person really, so I always wear the same thing as it takes up less time. These are Levi's corduroys, which I got for literally $10. I don't pay attention to style as much as I used to.

Who is your best-dressed British man?

James Blake is a tall guy who dresses well. He looks like Christopher Robin - I like that look. He's got that aesthetic

down.

When Vanity Fair produce an "Oral history of Community" in a decade's time, what do you think will be the revelation?

First of all, I want to live in that universe where that happens!

That would be great. The story of Community is already there: it is one of the only works of art that exists for existing purposes. We used to lift up things like that, but sometimes you have to realise that some things just exist and that's enough. Everything can't be recognised. It's a good series, you know?

What TV do you still rate?

We love American Dad. That's something we really love.

They have really cool themes. I actually did like Ted - I thought it was pretty good. It's kind of a chick flick. When you think about it, it's about "you need to grow up." I think it's applicable to a lot of people.

You follow the artist David Shrigley on Twitter. What do you admire about him?

I think his point of view is in line with a lot of people around now. We're aware of how insignificant we are. He gets to the core of it. You've got to find what connects us, makes us and shocks us all.

Who was the last stand-up you saw who really impressed you?

Hannibal Buress is really amazing. Him and Eric Andre - he has a show online I really like. They're too of my favourites right now.

What was the last big dumb song you really loved?

I like them all: the more ignorant they are the better. I really like that song "Paranoid" [by Ty Dolla $ign]. It's not even dumb: I just don't know why no one had ever thought of that idea of being in a club and feeling paranoid. That's such a true feeling but no one has ever articulated it.

You would have thought all the permeations of club songs would have been reached by now...

It's something The Weeknd should be singing about! But he hasn't touched on yet how paranoid it makes you to be in the club. You're literally parading in with all your money and you're sitting in a dark space where anyone can get you. And there are girls there.

What music trend needs to die out right now?

Standing for commodity. The problem is that hip hop has always been about making something from nothing and feeding your family.

That "by any means necessary" mentality. That used to be cool and brave: the whole hustlers' mentality.

One of the most interesting things about Biggie [Smalls] was that he remembered selling drugs to mothers and one interviewer asked him whether he was ok with that. He said: "Man, if she wasn't getting drugs from me, she's be getting drugs from somebody else. I was at least feeding my daughter with my drug money." That was an idea that shook a lot of people.

But I'm not the kind of person that feels like, "Hip hop should be like this..." I'm not a rapper. I just want people to do what they're uncomfortable with... and find out who they really are.

*Childish Gambino plays Brixton Academy on 19 August.

...because the internet (Glassnote/Island Records) is out now.*