I’d Die Without You in the 1Xtra Live Lounge (P.M. Dawn cover) / Childish Gambino / The Superslice

We’ve done our fair share of throwing shade on Donald Glover in the past. With the emo-ness, with the false humility that bordered on pretense, we enjoyed him on Community but most of his persona rubbed us the wrong way. Glover reminded us of the self-impressed, overly self-aware and overconfident thespian kid you knew in school. Maybe we resented the notion that culture considered him a Renaissance man; he is part actor, part writer, part stand-up, part musician. Or maybe it was because there was this perception that he considered himself an Artist-with-a-capital-A. Maybe we were just projecting.

We never could get down with the whole hip hop hipster alter ego of Childish Gambino. We were begrudged that he received ample stage time at Coachella.

Maybe it was just envy; all these faux-nerd cute hipster fangirls fawning over him. Haters gonna hate. Well, we couldn’t hate on this.

The multi-talented Glover visited 1Xtra Live Lounge of BBC Radio 1 and blew us away with this tasteful and stripped-down cover of P.M. Dawn‘s classic RnB ballad I’d Die Without You (Which is a little over 21 years old! Haha, it’s old enough to drink adult beverages.). Glover breathes new life into the song and shows off his crooning chops. We might even dig it more than the original.

With one throwaway cover he did in the UK, he dispelled that pesky cookie-cutter overachiever image and became human…and cool…organic. We could definitely get down with an RnB album by Gambino.

Check out his film/music project, Because the Internet.

–@teemunny

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