Childish Gambino’s 3.15.20 Five Years Later

Music Journalist

Benjamin Kenyon

3.15.20 holds an odd place in the highly decorated yet polarizing discography of Childish Gambino, the musical moniker of a modern renaissance man, Donald Glover which he has since retired. Time will tell if this retirement persists. The album was released officially onto music streaming platforms one week after the titular date, for the most part lacking conventional song titles, instead opting for timestamps signifying the start time for most of the songs. 3.15.20 also featured a blank white cover (the photo above was the album’s original promotional cover before Glover opted for the blank white cover). The album came amidst the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic and just after the death of Gambino’s father and birth of his third son. The amalgamation of these circumstances led to an album that received mostly positive reception. Genre-wise, the project is all over the place: dark electro-pop finds itself next to dance next to yearning soulful ballads to name a few. Many tracks feature foreboding or disorienting outros, creating an under-the-surface eeriness that permeates throughout Glover’s acclaimed TV show Atlanta.

The album in its original form has been removed from streaming platforms by Glover, who chose to rework and re-release the album in 2024 as Atavista, with many of the original songs still populating the track list slightly altered with new mixes and some with new features. In a 2022 feature for Interview Magazine, Glover likened his artistic process to that of Willy Wonka. “That’s the world I like. You have your factory, you make something, put it out, and then close shop to the public for a while.” This spirit rings especially true with 3.15.20, with minimal rollout and little said about the album post-release (while unlikely to happen for this album, touring was impossible to the then-emerging pandemic).

3.15.20 is a culmination of Glover’s previous works, his maturation as an artist evident. At times, 3.15.20 jarringly pivots from 2016’s “Awaken, My Love!”, while other tracks feel like they could easily slot into that album. Some of these jarring tracks are a completely new foray for Gambino, while others are reminiscent of 2014’s Kauai. The album is produced largely in tandem by Gambino’s go-to producer Ludwig Goransson and frequent Kendrick Lamar collaborator DJ Dahi, two industry leaders whose career credits extend for pages.

“Algorhythm” is a track with Dahi’s fingerprints all over, the glitchy start and stop percussion “something that’s gonna make you move and groove” as sung by Gambino in the song’s chorus. “Algorhythm” is far from the only track with undeniable rhythm. “19.10” (“To Be Hunted” on Atavista release), one of the album’s most up-tempo tracks, is built around an infectious four-on-the-floor drum pattern which Gambino sings beautifully over, professing self-love through the lens of a childhood conversation with his father.  “47.48” (“The Violence” on Atavista release) is 3.15.20 funkiest song, also featuring some of its most beautiful harmonies from Gambino himself. While it couldn’t be more different stylistically, the song carries on the themes of Gambino’s 2018 smash hit “This Is America”. Lyrically the song acknowledges the anxieties stemming from systemic brutality, a theme central to the song and accompanying video for “This Is America”, pleading in between these acknowledgements to persevere and love despite the circumstances. The track culminates in a dialogue featuring Glover nailing the idea of self and familial love into the head of his young son, Legend, that plays as one of the album’s most intimate and euphoric moments.

Throughout his career, Glover has taken flack for his over-seriousness and admittedly sometimes corny self-aggrandizing. Glover’s music (and artistic output in general, particularly Atlanta) should excuse the eyerolls. Who cares whether an artist comes across as arrogant or insufferable if the quality of their work can hold its own? 3.15.20 is not a perfect album, but one that is not frequently mentioned among Gambino’s best, which could be due to a number of factors, whether that be its minimalistic presentation and visual aesthetic, its release coming in the early hours of Covid, or the music simply not resonating the way other projects of Gambino’s have is a mystery. With Glover’s retirement from the Gambino persona, 3.15.20 is one of the last musical endeavors we get from him. Hopefully that isn’t the case.