Donald Glover Explains Why He’s Retiring His Childish Gambino Alter Ego

Donald Glover is getting ready to say goodbye to Childish Gambino.

The 40-year-old Emmy and Grammy winner first started using the musical alter ego over a decade ago and rose to fame over the course of six albums.

Donald will be officially retiring Childish Gambino after releasing his latest album Bando Stone & the New World on Friday, July 19. He first announced that he was going to retire the alter ego back in April.

In a new interview, Donald explained why he’s going to stop using the moniker.

“I’m not 25 anymore, standing in front of a boulder like, ‘This has to move,’” Donald shared with The New York Times. “You give what you can, but there’s beauty everywhere in every moment. You don’t have to build it. You don’t have to search for it.”

When I put my son on my shoulders, I feel deep joy. That’s real,” Donald continued. “No one on their deathbed is going to look back and say, ‘Thank God I avoided being cringe.’”

As his artistic process has evolved, so has Donald‘s definition of success.

“Success to me is, honestly, being able to put out a wide-scale album that I would listen to,” Donald explained. “For this album, I really wanted to be able to play big rooms and have big, anthemic songs that fill those rooms, so that people feel a sense of togetherness.”

He continued, “If people listen to this album, and it becomes a part of their identity, if they look back a year later and are reminded of how much they listened to it and what that felt like in the summer of ’24 — that kind of real estate is way more valuable to me [than chart metrics].”

Donald also explained that he wrote Bando Stone & the New World to go hand in hand with a movie he made about a musician “recording his masterpiece on a remote island when a global calamity strikes.”

“I thought there was a really great journey in somebody making music and not knowing what the purpose of it was,” Donald said. “I feel like everybody goes through that, not just artists. That feeling of like, ‘What is any of this for?’”

If you missed it, Donald just landed another Emmy nomination for his role in Mr. & Mrs. Smith! Check out the full list of 2024 Emmy Awards nominations here.