Camp By Childish Gambino
In this article, Jack Brouillette talks about Camp, Childish Gambino's first studio album.
In this article, Jack Brouillette talks about Camp, Childish Gambino's first studio album.
Childish Gambino’s first studio album, Camp, was released on Nov. 10, 2011, and consisted of 13 songs with a total run time of 56 minutes. Six songs out of the 13 are highlighted the most notable in this article. Gambino shows his own experiences as a young African American kid's experience at summer camp while still dealing with racism, poverty, and fitting in. Donald Glover, otherwise known as Childish Gambino, grew up in an impoverished family. Though his family got into a better house, they still dealt with poverty.
“Outside” is the first song on the album, describing how his family got out of his impoverished household and into a better home. Even with all of this work, extended family-- including his cousins-- would hate on him. They believed that Gambino thought he was better than them, even though his family was still struggling, just on a different plane.
The Genius annotation on “Outside” compares the song to the "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato, a Greek philosopher. This story told of prisoners trapped in a cave, who were only able to hear people and see shadows through a small window. One prisoner makes it out. However, when he sees the light, he runs back to what he is accustomed to. If someone had forced him out for enough time to focus his eyes to the light, he would have seen the beauty of the outside world. When he went back to the cave to talk to the other prisoners about the outside world, he said that it would be superior to the cave. However, when another prisoner goes outside and gets blinded, like he did the first time, the other prisoners infer that the outside world is harmful, due to the man being blinded, and would eventually kill anyone who attempted to drag them out of the cave. Glover’s family is a parallel to the prisoners who got out-- with the blinded being his extended relatives.
“Firefly” By Childish Gambino, the second track on the album, explains how he is at the peak of his career. The lyrics, posted on Genius explain how he has become so popular that people recognize him: “Now when they see us in the streets all they wanna do is take pics”. Firefly was also a show on FOX about a crew on a spaceship that left Earth after it became uninhabitable, showing how Gambino has escaped his life as a nobody and now has a new life in the projects.
“Bonfire”, the third track on Camp is one of Gambino’s more egotistical songs, with some of his best lines. The track starts with sirens blaring and haunting gospel chants with Childish Gambino rapping about girls and how he is on top of the world. The music video for “Bonfire” shows Gambino on the ground with torn, old clothes and a rope around his neck. He looks off into the distance, seeing himself telling stories around the campfire with other campers, but suddenly a man appears with a rope and knife, walking towards the campfire. Gaminbo tries to run towards the man, eventually getting to the campfire with the campers, though none of them can see him. The man with the knife and rope walks behind the campers, scaring them and then high-fiving the Gambino that was telling stories. The group laughs and walks off. The Gambino that was first shown is now confused, stumbling and falling back to the ground, where he was at the start of the video. This music video seems to be about a camper from past years trying to fit in, getting killed and hanged, having to fall from the same tree every year, trying to stop the same fate from happening. However, it is not actually happening. It is a different story with different people in a different year. The Gambino is a tortured spirit-- forced to relive the moments before his death, confused each time it is not his story.
“All The Shine” By Childish Gambino is the fourth track on Camp. It talks about how rappers with their own style are usually discarded, with the line “But Pitchfork only like rappers who crazy or hood, man”. The quote talks about Pitchfork Media, a music review website which is notorious for only giving stereotypical “hood” rappers good reviews. Two months later, Pitchfork Media gave Camp a 1.6 out of 10.0 rating. Gambino explains how rappers who do not follow mainstream rap media will always be discarded and seen as bad or different. “Letter Home” by Childish Gambino is the only interlude on this album. The instrumental is a stripped-down version of the one on “All The Shine”, leaving just the violins. This song is meant to address an ex that Gambino still had feelings for, leaving him unsure if she was even still interested in him.
“Heartbeat” By Childish Gambino is a song about that one person and not being able to express feelings toward them. It shows the complicated emotions that occur for those who are with other people when they want to be with "that one person". In the first verse, Gambino relates himself to a ghost after the breakup, seeing himself as dead and gone. Throughout the song, Gambino progressively starts to separate himself from the relationship, asking if they are still friends, even though, in the last verse, he says, “But not really”, showing the hold the relationship had on Gambino.
“That Power” Is the final track on Camp. The first part of the track has hard-hitting drums with choir voices in the background. Gambino talks about his experience of being the only colored kid trying to make his way through summer camp. Halfway through the song, the track transitions to a violin in the background as Gambino talks about the bus ride home from camp. He is talking to a girl he met at camp, the only person who treated him normally and related to him. At one point, he mentions his feelings and says one word: "destiny". The girl does not know how to respond, leading to awkward silence as Gambino falls asleep. When he wakes up, the bus is finally stopped and another girl walks up to him with a group behind her, mentioning ‘destiny’ before laughing and walking off the bus.
Donald learned from this experience and, instead of becoming cynical and jaded to the world because of this, he adapted by keeping his lyrics open to his fans, practically ruining any later relationships because there would never be privacy, though Donald feels like he owes it to any fans. The song ends with Donald explaining that he never got off that bus, showing the change and impact that Camp had on him.
Overall, Camp is a great album, though it was far too hated upon at its release. This album was what influenced many artists to start making music and contribute to the hip-hop scene. Childish Gambino's discography is beautiful, with this album starting and affecting said discography heavily.