Donald Glover Confirms Childish Gambino Retirement

Childish Gambino is hanging up the mic. Armed with his first-ever Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Redbone,” Donald Glover confirmed plans to retire his stage name after his upcoming fourth studio album.

“I stand by that,” said the “Atlanta” creator during a post-Grammys press conference. “I’m really appreciative of this [Grammy]. I’m making another project right now, to make, but I like endings. I think they’re important to progress.”

He added: “I think if a lot of things had death clauses in them, we wouldn’t have a lot of problems in the world, to be honest. So I think endings are good because they force things to get better.”

Glover, who walked into the evening with five nominations, including Record of the Year and Album of the Year, also performed “Terrified” from Awaken, My Love! During the performance, he was joined by his Lion King reboot co-star J.D. McCrary.

In June, Glover spoke about his “last Gambino album.” He later explained: “I feel like there’s gotta be a reason to do things and I always had a reason to be punk. Being punk just always felt really good to me and we always looked at ‘Atlanta’ as a punk show and I feel like the direction I would go with Childish Gambino wouldn’t be punk anymore. As much as ‘Redbone’ is a punk song because it’s a gospel song that’s on the radio, I’m like, ‘There’s only so far you can go before you just are the radio.'”

It’s unclear whether Glover plans on retiring from music altogether, or if he is simply retiring the Childish Gambino stage name. This month, the multifaceted star fueled rumors of a future in music, when he signed a new deal with RCA Records, calling it a “necessary change of pace.”