It’s no mystery that being a teenager sucks. No matter how hard you try to play and tweak with the variables, it still doesn’t take away the damage done by not knowing who you are and trying to find yourself and all the people you associate with in the same boat. We lie, we cheat, and we steal in efforts to climb insignificant social ladders. Yada yada yada. In the midst of this negative repression, I want to highlight the positive influences I experienced as a youth.

I remember finding out about childish gambino in my sophomore year high school... I think. I was attracted by his minimalistic music video for one of his biggest songs at the time, “freaks and greek”. The title of the song had nothing to do with the actual song but rather it was named after the last punchline in a bragadocious bar-after-bar rap song. Upon more research into his music, I developed an extreme liking for him. I came for the bars but stayed for the content.

Eventually, I would dig into his music and download the free ep (also known as “free-p”), cul-de-sac, and some songs of from his super humble beginings off, “I am not a rapper”. They say music shapes our identity but I felt as though  my identity (or whatever you call it at that age) was shaping the music I consumed. I was black male, who didn’t really knew what it meant to black or male. I have a father, a great one in fact that has supported me throughout my life but there are just some things that I felt like were missing out for my emotional benefit. Here are some lesson I learned from Donald Glover.

1. The world is yours. I looked up to Donald because he did everything, He rapped, produced, acted, wrote for national television, did stand up comedy, and bunch of other things. He has this one lyric that sticks out, “online rappers screaming that they’re better than me/ I’m doing 3 other jobs, bitch you better be”

2. Be yourself... no really yourself to the fullest. It takes too much energy to lie and always craft different masks for your identity. People will hate you. People will love you. You just have to make sure you give them the right person to judge. You’ll get into more trouble making up who you are than just being yourself.

3. Embrace your “flaws”. This kinda ties back into the be yourself lesson but from a different angle a bit. Let’s start off by using this quote, “If I’m a faggot, spell it right. I got way more than 2 g’s”. People will always try to bring you down and it’s hard to bring someone down that lacks insecurities. Do you, boo.

3. Don’t be a dick. In life, we have a bunch of relationships and we learn both about ourselves and other people through them. You learn how to deal with shitty people and sometimes unfortunately, you’re this shitty person. I’ve definitely been a shitty person in the past and he helped me process it.