Donald Glover is an award-winning 30 Rock writer, one-of-a-kind sketch comedian, actor on Community, and successful NYU alum (hey, gotta give a shout out to my alma mater… to whom I owe more money than I’ll probably make in the next five years). Now I’m finding out he’s a) one hell of a rapper and b) only a few years older than me. Way to show the rest of us up, sir.
When you first listen to I AM JUST A RAPPER 2 (available for free at his website), you’re going to think of a lot of bands and artists you’ve loved. One minute you’ll think you’re jamming to a missing track off of Kanye West’s Graduation and the next you’re remembering car rides singing along to the Beach Boys with only a hint of irony. All of this with tight beats (despite being clearly under-funded compared to both West and the Boys) and the witty lyrics you’d expect from an Emmy-winning writer.
The first track “The Real (Infinity Guitars)” mixes a Santogold-esque freak pop electric guitar riff with the kind of vocal energy and lyrical cleverness that puts a lot of the radio-worn rappers to shame. By the end of the song you’re so in love with the sound that you almost regret the rather drastic change in instrumentation on “Get It (Tightrope).” (I believe it’s an electric mandolin with heavy effects, but I have the worst instrument-identifying ear in the world. Any help on that one?) About ten seconds in, though, you’re totally on board for some of the catchiest beats and lyrics you’ll hear from an indie artist in some time. And that’s the way the rest of the album plays out – you jump from sound to sound, yet somehow it’s always held together by Glover’s vocal charm.
In the end Glover’s music is catchy, smart, apologetically nerdy, and just plain fun.
So download some of the tracks, you won’t be disappointed. My only fear is that if this stuff catches on, Glover might ditch his comedy career for a music one and Comunity will have to get a cheesy Cheers-esque character replacement with an actor who makes a Fat Actress sequel ten years later. So on second thought, don’t listen to Childish Gambino at all.
Random Observations:
- Guest rapper/fellow comedian DC Pierson doesn’t have quite the chops that Glover’s got, but any rapper that references the late Dollhouse is gold to me.
- Is that the baseline of Grease’s “Summer Lovin’” on “Nowhere to Go (disaster babe)”? Because if it is, that’s awesome.
- Most badass lyric: “I am just a murderer / Man I just killed this.”
- Funniest lyric: “I’m gonna do me so hard I’ll get pregnant.”
- Did I mention he won an Emmy? Who the hell needs a Grammy?
Guess I have some people who share my taste, because the director of Hurt Locker, Katherine Bigelow, took home a best director award from the DGA awards. Most of the past recipients of this award have gone on to take the Oscar for best director. Crossing my fingers for a fabulous filmmaker!
I’ve been pretty public about my support of female filmmakers. As a recent film school grad myself who worked extensively with the incredible Fusion Film Festival at NYU, I’m always excited and inspired when I see a woman contribute something incredible to the film community. That said, I’m not one to dole out compliments to anyone, male or female, if they don’t deserve it. That’s why I’m happy to say that the film “The Hurt Locker” earns Katherine Bigelow all of the praise she has been receiving since its release.
The tragedy in Haiti has led a lot of pop culture icons to lend their time and dollars to help rebuild a country that was kicked while it was already down. A lot of these efforts focus on harnessing the donations and manpower of the general public – small donations that (as we’ll see below) add up to quite a large support system. Here are just a few of these campaigns, all of which open the efforts to your donations:
I was never a big follower of lifestyle blogs until I read Smitten Kitchen. The blog chronicles the culinary adventures of a Manhattanite as she tries whatever recipe comes her way.
I stumbled onto Shirt or Dress a few weeks ago and it’s been making me laugh at random moments throughout the day. Much like FailBlog, but oh so more specific, this is one of those blogs that you’re reminded of constantly during the day. As in, “Hey, I should submit that to Shirt or Dress.”
The blog features real “dresses” that are suspciously shirt-length. This might seem like something that gets old fast, but the snarky writing and hilarious comments make for some entertaining reads. Definitely a great site to check during the dull moments of the day (though, by nature, some of the pics are on the border of being NSFW).
While its occasionally obfuscated sentences and multiple nonlinear structures make this a difficult book to introduce a reader to David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a marvelous book for avid readers who don’t mind the challenge.
The book is a collection of thematically related pieces that truly subvert the short story form. The “brief interviews” of the title are interspersed throughout the book, each one in the form of a dramatic monologue by a different male interview (signified as “A:”). The presumably female interviewer is given no voice, and is only signified by occasional instances of “Q:” with no question following, implying that everything the male says is prompted by a female’s question. The result is a sequence of funny yet disturbing stories that examine the experience of men and women in a post-feminism era.
Other stories in the collection carry on this theme, some straightforward such as the hyper-realistic depiction of a young boy waiting in line for the diving board on his 13th birthday, making a literal plunge into adulthood like the various people in front of him. Yet the interviews truly provide the powerful through-line for the collection, ultimately creating some of the most memorable characters.
That said, this book is not for somebody looking for a light read. These are slice-of-life pieces that often obscure both their literal and thematic meaning with experiment in narration and form. Still, if you’re a serious reader, you’d be remiss not to read this modern classic.
For those of you who (like me) felt we don’t get enough of Neil Patrick Harris: NPH finally has joined Twitter. Now you can enjoy his humor in 140 characters or less.
I’m the sort of nerd who has always used her commute to get work done. After all, a long commute provides several internet-free hours a day which amounts to several distraction-free hours a day for finishing little tasks that might otherwise be overlooked. That said, now that I’ve upped it to four hours a day of travel, I’ve found that it’s healthy to use a little of that time having some fun. While I plan to do a future post on commute-worthy books, I thought I’d start off by recommending entertaining apps for the one device that never leaves my side: my iPod Touch. Best of all, all of these apps have offline functionality!
