Donald Glover drops 12-track EP via ingenious live stream

Donald Glover has dropped a surprise album featuring Ariana Grande and 21 Savage via a live stream.

The ‘Redbone’ singer quietly posted the new tracks on a website called donaldgloverpresents.com in the early hours of Sunday morning (15.03.20), with his management later re-tweeting the link on their social media profiles.

Rapper 21 Savage features on the song ‘Vibrate’, whilst pop superstar Ariana and ‘The Other Side’ hit maker SZA make appearances. The 12-track LP also features ‘Feels Like Summer’, which was released in 2018 under Donald’s former alter-ego Childish Gambino, which he later announced he was retiring.

The stream is accompanied by a four-panel artwork depicting the world in chaos, which comes amid the global coronavirus pandemic.

Fans are also invited to type in text, which could mean Donald is seeking recommendations for the title for the stream, which currently has the name Donald Glover Presents – which is the same as his Adidas range. The musician and-actor had said he’d planned to release one more album before giving up his Childish Gambino moniker.

After collecting his Grammy in 2018, he said: “I stand by that. I’m really appreciative of this [Grammy]. I’m making another project right now. But I like endings, I think they’re important to progress. I think if a lot of things had death clauses in them we wouldn’t have a lot of problems in the world, to be honest. I think endings are good because they force things to get better.”

The ‘Atlanta’ creator – who juggles music with acting and directing – had just signed a new record deal with RCA and promised fans new music was on its way.

His last record was ‘Awaken, My Love’ in 2016.

Speaking about the decision, Donald said previously: “There’s nothing worst than like a third sequel, like a third movie and we’re like, ‘again?’

“You know, I like it when something’s good and when it comes back there’s a reason to come back, there’s a reason to do that. Like I feel like there’s gotta be a reason to do things and I always had a reason to be punk. Being punk just always felt really good to me and we always looked at ‘Atlanta’ as a punk show and I feel like the direction I would go with Childish Gambino wouldn’t be punk anymore.”

Gambino has stayed busy since his last music project. According to PitchFork, Glover returned with the Amazon Prime movie Guava Island, co-starring Rihanna and directed by Hiro Murai. He also sang across The Lion King (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack).