How well do you know actor, rapper, writer, and singer Donald Glover? If you were to search online, you would get a lot of searches that wonder if he is related to the talented actor Donald Glover. WRONG. Then if you were to ask people on the street, you would probably get a mix of responses saying, "Oh, he's that guy that made the hit song, 'This Is America.'" While other might say, "Oh, he sings that guy that sings that song 'Redbone.'" And even others may say, he's the guy that was on that show 'Atlanta' or acted in the show 'Community' or was in a number of movies. Regardless of what people know about glover, it's easy to see that you cannot put him in a box. He does a lot of things and does them well.
Glover, born at Edwards Air Force Base in Kern County, California, was raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia, a suburb outside of Atlanta, by parents Beverly (a retired daycare provider) and Donald Glover, Sr. (a retired postal worker). Life for Glover and his younger brother Stephen—who went on to become head story editor and writer on Atlanta, wasn't exactly easy.
"If people saw how I grew up, they would be triggered," Glover told Esquire in their March 2018 issue. "Confederate flags everywhere. I had friends who were white, whose parents were very sweet to me but were also like, 'Don't ever date him.' I saw that what was being offered on Sesame Street didn't exist."
The Glovers raised their sons as Jehovah's Witnesses, and Barbara forbade all television except for PBS. Their family took in a number of foster children, adopting two of them. But in welcoming those in need into their home, along with all their struggles, the Glover children were exposed to perhaps more than their young spirits were ready for. "I saw kids dying of AIDS in our house," he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017. "I saw people getting stabbed. I saw drug dealers stealing people's address books so they could get to my house because people [there] owed them money."
It was through this that the mind of a storyteller was born in Glover. "I wanted to build my own world because then you get to make the world a little safer," he told the publication rather soberly.
After attending high school at DeKalb School of the Arts—where he was voted "Most Likely to Write for The Simpsons," which was ironic considering his first job in Hollywood. After graduation, he attended New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where he graduated in 2006 with a degree in Dramatic Writing. It was that same year that Glover was contacted by producer David Miner, to whom he sent writing samples including a spec script that he had written for The Simpsons. Miner and Tina Fey were impressed by Glover's work and invited him to become a writer for the hugely successful NBC sitcom 30 Rock. Glover was a writer for 30 Rock from 2006 to 2009, where he also had occasional cameo appearances. He was presented the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Series. From there the awards kept coming in.
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For his work on Atlanta, Glover won various accolades, including Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, and Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy.
Glover's third album, "Awaken, My Love!", was released on December 2, 2016, spawning the single "Redbone", which peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and eventually earned him a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance. In 2017, Glover was included on the annual Time 100 list of the...
... most influential people in the world. In 2018, Glover released the song and video for "This Is America", which debuted at number-one on the Hot 100.
"I want to be like Spike Jonze, in a sense," he says in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, "where I'm like, 'I do what I want when I want to do it, and trust me because I also want to make you money.'"
The only boyhood dream he seems not to have pursued is becoming a wedding planner, which sounds like an odd fit until Glover breaks it down. "What you're really doing is giving people an experience," he explains, "and the people are happy already, so you just want to give them something they can remember."
Whatever it is Glover puts his hand to, know that it will be on his terms and nine times out of 10, it will probably be a success.
So what's next for the up-and-coming legend?
The sky is just the beginning. Look out moon, here he comes!
