Childish Gambino knows how to sell an aesthetic. He alters his look for each album rollout, and the music videos that accompany his singles follow suit. "3005" is worlds away from "This Is America," and his new single, "Lithonia," is different from both. The video for "Lithonia" starts off with a surprisingly minimal set up. Childish Gambino steps to the mic and sings. The camera focuses on his mouth, and stays put for the first 40 seconds before cutting to a wide shot. From there, a band shuffles in behind the artist and starts jamming.
"Lithonia" has a rock and punk influence, which is new within Childish Gambino's catalog. The band members will look familiar to fans of both indie music and film. The drummer is Alex Wolff, who got his start in the Naked Brothers Band but has since gone on to star in the classic horror flick Hereditary. The guitarist is Ludwig Goransson, Gambino's longtime producer and Oscar-winning composer of the film Oppenheimer. A small audience sits before the band, listening intently as the music swells. It's the switch at the 1:30 mark, though, where things really take a weird turn. The band members begin to exhibit odd behavior, culminating with Gambino screaming until his eyeballs literally explode.
Childish Gambino Turns Feral In New Music Video
The girl in the front row gets covered in blood, and proceeds to run out of the studio. The video hard cuts to her running outside, but Childish Gambino chases after her. The artist can no longer see (obviously), but feral instincts appear to have kicked in, and he lets out an animalistic scream. It's pretty unsettling, especially given how sudden the shift from weirdness to outright terror is. Gambino has never officially dabbled in horror, but he's flirted with the genre in the past. He was the co-creator and producer of the HBO show Swarm, which detailed a woman's disturbing obsession with a pop star.
The music video for "Lithonia" also harkens back to Childish Gambino's breakout single, "Bonfire." The 2011 standout from Camp featured the rapper waking up in the woods with a noose around his neck. He spends the rest of the video trying to warn his friends about an impending murderer. The video ends with Childish Gambino realizing that he's a ghost, and that none of the other campers can see or hear him. We're curious to see how the rest of the Bando Stone and the New World music videos continue the "Lithonia" storyline.