California-born artist Childish Gambino released his highly anticipated third studio album, Awaken, My Love!, on Dec 2. The album was produced by Glover and his longtime collaborator, Ludwig Goransson. A couple weeks prior to the album drop, two singles, “Me and Your Mama” and  “Redbone” were released on Beats 1 Radio and Apple Music.

Glover has been discovering new forms of entertainment this year, with his TV show on FX, Atlanta and this album. It was different than anything he has released in that past. It consists of an experimental hip-hop album infused with funk and rock.

The first track and one of the released singles “Me and Your Mama” stood out more than any other song. The first two minutes of this track features vocals “I’m in love when we are smoking that la-la-la-la-la,” then transitions into a guitar. He then goes on to sing in a smooth R&B/Gospel sound about the girl of his dreams. This was the best track in the album in my opinion.    

The next song that stood out was “California,” which is different from any other song. Instead of the several genres included in this project, this song has a tropical feel to it. It is also is considered one of the most annoying and undesirable sounds of the year, according to listeners.

The outro, “Stand Tall” brings a calm, collective end to this album, which wasn’t expected at all. He looks back to his childhood, remembering advice his parents gave to him, to follow his dreams and to stay positive in times of hardship and worry.

The project received a mixture of reviews from websites and all over Twitter. “The album was something different, I like different kinds of music and am open to it but he needs to go back to rapping if he wants to keep his sales up. Like his older projects, Because the Internet and STN MTN / Kauai,” senior Lucas Michael said.

According to HDD, he his expected to sell 85k-95k units by the ninth. To compare, his last album Because the Internet sold 96k copies in its first week. Rating: 7.2/10