Childish Gambino’s Brilliant ‘Atavista’ Finally Gets Its Day in the Sun: Album Review
variety.comJem Aswad Executive Editor, Music It’s hard to think of an album with a more confusing backstory than Childish Gambino-aka-Donald Glover’s “Atavista,” which was first released stealthily — with little notice, promotion, cover artwork or even song titles — into a dark world four years ago, in the early days of the pandemic, and originally named after its grim release date, “3.15.20.” The album basically kept its light under a bushel for the past four years, until last month when Glover announced on his Gilga internet radio show that he’d be re-releasing it in the near future.
And at midnight this past Sunday, it suddenly appeared on streaming services, with three songs removed and two new ones added, bearing the title Glover said he’d originally intended.
It was accompanied by a characteristically subtext-laden video for the song “Big Foot Little Foot,” and the announcement of a massive world tour launching in August.No matter the name, it was an album fans had been waiting literally years for: In 2018, Glover dropped three singles, performed the greatest “Saturday Night Live” hosting/musical guest double-duty in memory, released the deeply political “This Is America” video and launched an electrifying world tour that sprawled into the following year and included a headlining appearance at Coachella.
But by the end of 2019, there was still no album.Yet on March 15, 2020, just days after pandemic lockdown descended, he quietly and suddenly released it, with only a social media post leading to website where the album played on an endless loop with no distinguishable beginning or end … and he took it down around 12 hours later.
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