(CNN) -- No matter what side of Donald Glover you've come to know -- actor, stand-up comedian, writer or rapper, under the moniker Childish Gambino -- get ready to become better acquainted with all of them.

The Georgia native has been starring on NBC's cult favorite sitcom "Community" as the former jock Troy Barnes, but any Glover devotee will tell you that he's been steadily grinding at stand-up comedy and music along the way.

All of that is coming to a head with his 24-city "IAmDonald" tour, which kicks off in Iowa in April. The entertainer has promised that the hybrid concert/comedy event will be the total Donald Glover experience.

"I don't want [it] to be 'Donald Glover the comedian opened for Childish Gambino,'" he explained to MTV. "I want it to be more like, 'These are all facets of me.'"

Perhaps it's an effort to help us realize that it's all coming from just one person. He worried last year in the L.A. Times that people didn't understand that "the guy who wrote for '30 Rock' is also the guy on 'Community' who's also the guy in [the comedy sketch] 'Bro Rape.'"

But indeed it is. Glover's hasn't been in the front of the TV camera for very long, but his resume stretches all the way back to his days as a resident assistant at New York University. He may not be at the James Franco-nian level of ubiquity yet, but it's still hard to think of anyone who began their career writing for "30 Rock" as someone on the rise.

He landed a job on the NBC show thanks to an executive producer taking note of his comedy work, but he soon voluntarily left to concentrate on stand-up. He then landed a role on "Community," and, well, you know what happened with that.

Along the way, he also churned out 2009's dark comedy "Mystery Team" with the comedy group he co-founded, Derrick Comedy, and starred in his own Comedy Central special last year.

Does he sleep? Not really. "I have so many ideas and things I want to do, sleeping isn't going to accomplish that," he's matter-of-factly said.

Lately, though, it's his rap skills as Childish Gambino -- a name cultivated from an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator he discovered in college -- that are getting the most attention, particularly with the release of his latest EP that was made available free of charge on Tuesday. His music comes without a price tag because Glover has said his intent is to just express himself as much as possible to as wide an audience as possible, something he may not be able to do as easily if he went corporate.

So while his newness is relative -- the EP that fans are appropriately calling "EP" follows closely on the heels of his prior album "Culdesac" and a number of mixtapes -- SPIN still spotlighted him as one of the best five new artists to watch in March.

The track "Freaks and Geeks" -- which is accompanied by a high-energy music video that will likely provide some with a "wait, that's the dude from 'Community'" moment -- is definitely one to note.

"As Childish Gambino," SPIN says, "Glover is bringing the razor-sharp wit, humor, and delivery he's mastered on TV to rap... He used to rap over a lot of indie rock, but now the music's mostly original and he's touring this spring with a band and there's nothing gimmicky about it."

That honesty is definitely part of his appeal. It seems the Internet goes hard for him with support (see: Donald Glover for Spider-Man campaign, circa last summer) not just because he's quite talented, but also because he's simply being his own, nerdy self.

"My parents had a lot of foster kids living with us, and a lot of my stuff is autobiographical -- stuff that weirded me out as a kid," he once explained to Variety of his comedic style. "I was the only black kid in my school for a long time, and I got picked on a lot as I was a big nerd. I was really into 'Star Trek' and 'Looney Tunes' and crafts and writing plays. I wasn't one of the cool kids."



So when it comes to the idea of "cool," especially as it's been applied in hip-hop, Glover isn't interested.

"I want to make it OK for people to be whoever they are," he explained to MTV. "I feel like a lot of my music, for a long time I didn't do it because I was afraid [of], 'Oh, people shouldn't know this about me; they should just know me as a comedian.' But I'm kind of done with that. That's bull[expletive]. I'm over trying to be cool."

Yet of course, by unabashedly embracing what some consider the antithesis of whatever "cool" may be, he's becoming the very definition of it.