Donald McKinley Glover (born September 25, 1983 in Edwards Air Force Base, California) is an American rapper, singer, writer, actor, comedian, director and producer.
As the number of creative titles just listed may imply, Glover is known and acclaimed as a premier Renaissance Man of his times, recognizable as much for his work in TV (being hired by Tina Fey to write for 30 Rock, rising to fame as Troy Barnes on Community, creating the FX series Atlanta, and co-creating the Amazon Prime Video series Swarm) and film (noted roles including a young Lando Calrissian in Solo and an adult Simba in the 2019 remake of The Lion King) as his successful career in music.
Although he's worked under a handful of names, dating back far before he grew mainstream recognition for it, he is most known musically for his work as a rapper, singer/songwriter and producer under the name Childish Gambino. All tropes related to his music should go on that page.
Glover is also credited as a principal inspiration for the creation of the Marvel Comics superhero Miles Morales through a campaign started in 2010 for him to play the lead role of Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man which used the hashtag "#donald4spiderman". Although it was unsuccessful, it was widely supported online, with no less than Stan Lee even voicing his approval. He would eventually voice Miles in Ultimate Spider-Man. In addition, he would later join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Spider-Man: Homecoming, playing Miles' uncle Aaron Davis (aka the Prowler), a role he briefly reprises in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
He was additionally a member of Derrick Comedy, a comedy troupe formed while he went to college at NYU, around the start of his career.
He is not related to actor Danny Glover, as he has actually brought up in some occasions.
He has accounts on Facebook
, Twitter, and SoundCloud.
Selected filmography:
- Mystery Team (2009) as Jason Rogers
- Community (2009 — 2014) as Troy Barnes
- The Muppets (2011) as Junior CDE Executive
- The To Do List (2013) as Derrick
- Girls (2013) as Sandy
- Adventure Time (2013, 2016) as Marshall Lee (voice)
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2014) as Greg
- China, IL (2015) as William "Transfer Billy" (voice)
- The Lazarus Effect (2015) as Niko
- Ultimate Spider-Man (2015) as Miles Morales / Spider-Man (voice)
- Magic Mike XXL (2015) as Andre
- The Martian (2015) as Rich Purnell
- Atlanta (2016 — 2022) as Earnest "Earn" Marks (also creator)
- Marvel Cinematic Universe and Spider-Man: Spider-Verse as Aaron Davis / "Prowler"
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
- Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) as Lando Calrissian
- Guava Island (2019) as Deni Maroon
- The Lion King (2019) as Simba (voice)
- Swarm (2023) (co-creator, cameo As Himself)
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024) as "John Smith" (also co-creator)
- Sony's Spider-Man Universe as Hypno-Hustler (TBA)
Tropes across his career (tropes in his music can be found at Childish Gambino)
- Alter-Ego Acting: He would differentiate Donald Glover, the nerdy Nice Guy; and Childish Gambino, the egotistical hedonist.
- Ascended Fancast: Coming off Community, Glover was a very popular choice for the role of Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spider-Man, and even actively campaigned for it ahead of The Amazing Spider-Man Series. Though he eventually aged out of playing the role in live action, Glover got the chance to voice Miles in Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) and played a character who is traditionally Miles's uncle in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
- Becoming the Mask: Invoked quite a bit during the because the internet era, with Gambino deliberately blurring the line between Donald Glover, Childish Gambino, and the Boy (the album's protagonist) in ways such as dressing up in the Boy's clothes when doing interviews. This makes a bit of a mystery with how personal the songs really are with how they connect to Gambino and correlate with the album's screenplay.
- Black and Nerdy: In his comedy special, he says that it wasn't cool to be a black nerd until 2003.
- Casting Gag: The character of Miles Morales was largely inspired by Glover's audition to play Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man. Glover got to voice Miles in Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), and played his uncle, Aaron Davis, in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
- Kids Are Cruel: In one bit of his stand-up, where he refers to them as "tiny Hitlers". He says that he knows this from a past experience where he saw two kids fighting over a basketball, and the one that lost the ball immediately yelled, "That's why your mom's in a fucking wheelchair!"
- The Problem with Pen Island: His initial Twitter handle was @DonGlover, which could be written as "Dong Lover". He acknowledged it both in his stand-up material and during an interview with Jimmy Fallon.Glover: I was, like, 25 when I found out my name was "Dong Lover".
- Nerdcore: Was called this a lot at the beginning of his career due to the humor in his lyrics, his lack of 'street cred', and the fact that he was far more famous as a comedy writer (30 Rock) and actor (Community) than as a musician. This label hasn't really been brought up since EP and Camp, the two of which made it obvious that there was more to him than geeky references.
- "Sesame Street" Cred: He was in the February 8, 2013 episode of Sesame Street, playing a pop star named LMNOP.
- Tenor Boy: An example of this because he lent his high tenor voice as Adult Simba in The Lion King (2019).
- That Came Out Wrong: In one stand-up routine, he mentions that he doesn't really care about Shaft and proceeds to portray himself as a superfan of Shaft. He ends up mentioning "Shaft juice" at one point, which is when he stops and realizes what it sounds like.
