About ““Awaken, My Love!””

Following a prolonged break from music, two years of social media silence, a mysterious app, and a secretive three-day music festival in California, on November 9th 2016, Childish Gambino took to Twitter to announce his third studio album, “Awaken, My Love!”.

A day later, Gambino made a special appearance on Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio with Zane Lowe to release the first single off the album, and announced an official release of December 2nd.

Leading up to the reveal of the album, speculation began to circulate that Gambino had very quietly welcomed a child into the world within the past year. Given many of the song titles from the official iTunes tracklist, it has also been understandably speculated that this album is dedicated to his newborn child.

“Awaken, My Love!” completes a transition from primarily rapping to singing, taking inspiration from 70’s funk, soul, R&B and rock. His favourite song from his previous album, “III. Urn”, visited similar veins. In a feature made with Billboard, Bino spoke about the record and how it differs from his previous projects, saying:

“I remember listening to songs my dad would play — albums by the Isleys or Funkadelic — and not understanding the feeling I was feeling. I remember hearing a Funkadelic scream and being like, ‘Wow, that’s sexual and it’s scary.’ Not having a name for that, though; just having a feeling. That’s what made it great.” Abandoning straightforward sense-making intrigued him: Whereas previous Childish Gambino albums featured verbal acrobatics and a constant deluge of similes — “very written,” as he puts it — he approached Awaken as “an exercise in just feeling and tone.”

The second single, “Redbone” was released on Thursday November 17th.

The project was one of most polarizing of the year among fans, with many disappointed on the radical change of genres, while others embraced the record and supported the change.