Record store clearance bins are filled with albums recorded by actors and actresses who should’ve stuck to their day jobs, but Community star/up-and-coming rapper Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) is aiming a little higher with his first proper studio album, Bonfire.
“A lot of actors or comedians do music and they might even do an album but that’s it and people think it’s a vanity project and it feels like one because it doesn’t seem like they’re really into developing it and getting better,” Glover recently told BBC.
In March, Glover will embark on a nationwide tour while the fate of NBC comedy Community, a cult hit about a study group at a community college, is decided. NBC pulled the third-season series from its spring 2012 schedule and has not yet announced when it will return. It seems like Glover, who also moonlights as a stand-up comic, will have plenty to do even if he never steps foot on the Community set again.
“Lately I feel like I have more to prove with the music,” said the 28-year-old California native, whose unique brand of hip-hop has been compared to Kanye West and Kid Cudi. “Every once a while, I’ll write down a joke, every once in a while I’ll do a little stand up but all my energy is in the music right now because I have more to learn.”
Glover also recently starred in Comedy Central stand-up special Weirdo, had acameo in 2011’s The Muppets and is slated to appear in 2013 high-school comedy The To-Do List.
“If you’ve decided what field you’re going into and presumably what you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing, you’ve got to think, ‘How can I survive?’” he explained. “One way people do that is by building a portfolio – doing what you love and other things and the second way, if the work isn’t there going out and doing it yourself.”
