"Awaken, My Love!" is the third studio album released by rapper Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover. The album was released on December 2, 2016.
Unlike his previous two Hip-Hop albums, "Awaken, My Love!" is a Funk and R&B album, produced by Childish Gambino and Ludwig Göransson. Childish Gambino would later reveal in 2022 that he made the album out of sheer pettiness, to prove a particular critic who criticized his inability to make a hit record. It worked- "Awaken, My Love!" is Childish Gambino's most commercially successful album, and would be nominated for Album of the Year and several other categories at the Grammy Awards, with the single "Redbone" winning for Best Traditional R&B performance.
Track listing
- "Me and Your Mama" (6:19)
- "Have Some Love" (3:44)
- "Boogieman" (3:36)
- "Zombies" (4:41)
- "Riot" (2:05)
- "Redbone" (5:26)
- "California" (2:45)
- "Terrified" (4:15)
- "Baby Boy" (6:22)
- "The Night Me and Your Mama Met" (3:34)
- "Stand Tall" (6:10)
"Awaken, My Tropes!"
- Album Intro Track: The first two minutes of "Me And Your Mama" is a mood-setting choir and keyboards.
- Book Ends: "Me and Your Mama" starts as a quiet, sensual song and escalates into louder, more intense songs before returning to the original quieter sound for the ending.
- Careful with That Axe: As a testament to his vocal prowess (and his larynx strength), he does a lot of powerful screaming throughout "Awaken, My Love!". He has said that the inspiration for this element of the album came from how he'd feel a certain way emotionally after hearing a scream when listening to the album Maggot Brain.
- Gratuitous Panning: The end of "Stand Tall".
- New Sound Album: "Awaken, My Love!" is a throwback to R&B, Motown, and funk, with inspiration taken from artists such as Funkadelic and Prince.
- No Ending: "Stand Tall" (and by extent, the whole of "Awaken, My Love!") ends with him belting a note that gets suddenly cut off before it can finish.
- Textless Album Cover: The cover is a photo of model Giannina Oteto wearing a beaded headdress.
