Donald Glover recently reflected on being booed while opening for Kid Cudi at Terminal 5 during a performance as Childish Gambino. The Atlanta creator recalled the incident in a new cover story for GQ, published on Tuesday.
“At the time I had a full band and a violinist,” he recalled. “I just kept turning to the band and telling them, ‘Next song! Next song!’ I put on a really intense show through the boos.” In the many years since the performance, Glover has blossomed into one of the most celebrated artists in the industry. His third studio album, Awaken, My Love!, received a Grammy Award nomination for Album of the Year and reached the top 5 of the Billboard 200. Glover's 2018 song, "This Is America," also won Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Rap/Sung Performance, and Best Music Video Grammys for the year it was released.
Childish Gambino At iHeartRadio Music Festival
Now, Glover has no qualms about his early career failings. He told GQ that he couldn't have gotten to where he is now had he, for example, been hired by Saturday Night Live. “I dodged so many bullets,” Glover explained. “Me being on SNL would’ve killed me. I got friends who made it on SNL and, at the time, I was like, damn. But if I got on SNL, my career wouldn’t have happened. And thank God. Thank God I didn’t get some of those pilots. I wanted so desperately to be on Parks and Rec because it was the cool, hipster show. I am the bullet dodger, I feel like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. That wasn’t a mistake, you know? God did that.”
Elsewhere in the interview with GQ, Glover revealed that Malia Obama is currently working on a short film for his production company, Gilga. The daughter of former president Barack Obama previously worked in the writer's room for Glover's Amazon series, Swarm.
Donald Glover's GQ Cover
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