Future Black History Month: Donald Glover's Vast Talents

Fuse is once again celebrating an extended Black History Month by highlighting a variety of rising forces who are creating Future Black History before our very eyes. For day one, we're looking at Donald Glover, the 33-year-old who's been entering us in myriad forms for almost a decade. His rise is well-known: NYU, Derrick Comedy internet sketch group, writer on 30 Rock, actor on Community, stand-up comedy, world takeover.

That takeover—which is in full swing right now—sees Glover in blockbusters, on a TV series of his own creation and stewardship, and in our ears, as Childish Gambino. In December, he used his new album "Awaken, My Love!" to swerve away from his seven prior mixtapes and two LPs to give us a rap-less fusion of funk, R&B, soul, blues, rock—nearly everything that's not a rap beat with bars on top. (None of this was necessary: 2013's Because the Internet album and the next year's STN MTN mixtape showed him further mastering the art of widely appealing, nerdiness-threaded, Donald-specific hip-hop.)