Childish Gambino Reveals "Extremely Petty" Reason for Creating '"Awaken, My Love!"'
For a new episode of HBO’s ‘The Shop.’
Childish Gambino revisited his 2016 record “Awaken, My Love!” for the upcoming episode of The Shop, revealing that he had an “extremely petty” reason for creating the hit record.
Speaking to the likes of Quinta Brunson, LeBron James, J Balvin and more, the rapper threw the question of wanting to win at any cost. “Did you ever tap into something that you feel is kind of bad to — in you to win? ‘Cause like, I struggle with that. Like, I am naturally petty,” Gambino said in the promotional video, making the rest of the group laugh. “Like, extremely petty.”
“‘Awaken, My Love’ was literally ’cause somebody was like, ‘Oh, he can’t make a hit.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, not only will I make a hit, I won’t make a video for it,’” he explained. Brunson responded that “pettiness has its place,” to which Gambino replied, “[Pettiness] makes you stronger, but I also know it’s like, it’s dark. It’s not something that it should be all of that, because then it’s bad.”
“Awaken, My Love!” went on to become his most commercially-successful album so far, debuting at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, giving Gambino five GRAMMY nominations and his first win for Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Redbone.”
Watch the teaser below.
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Elsewhere in music, Kanye West’s The College Dropout is expected to return to this week’s top 20.
