Childish Gambino's 3.15.20 Is Apt for This Isolated Moment

Donald Glover was never good at staying in one place. The show was smart to never settle on one remedy in particular—its genius is in its textual and subtextual slipperiness—but the question maintains a weighty relevance in Glover’s other pursuits, in his comedy, in his acting, in his video work, and most of all in his music as Childish Gambino. Gambino’s music typically unzips as a series of questions, obtuse shapes without concentrated form. Gambino’s new album, 3.15.20, isn’t a release from prior selves so much as a puzzle box holding every prior version of who he’s already been. “12:38” unspools with a thread of pleasure-seeking—“Dark chocolate, sea salt/ I took a bite/ She said, We gon’ have a special night,” Gambino sings in an oily harmony—but culminates with brash, spare lyricism from 21 Savage about police force, before swerving back into a euphoric state via Kadhja Bonet’s closing hook.