Childish Gambino Previews His New Album With Foushee & Steve Lacy At NYC Listening Event

Childish Gambino‘s new album (and multi-media project, as there’s a film involved), Bando Stone & The New World, is coming out on July 19, and fans couldn’t be more excited. Moreover, that’s especially the case thanks to a recent listening party he held in New York City to preview this new project and play some music from it. Donald Glover also tapped Steve Lacy and Fousheé to perform together, as it seems like they have a couple of collaborations on the highly anticipated LP. Either way, it made for an amazing show, and one that displayed the sheer variety and lushness that Bando Stone will presumably champion.

Furthermore, the single for this project, “Lithonia,” shows Childish Gambino moving in a more alt-rock and possibly emo-inspired direction, complete with blaring guitars, dramatic pianos, and a spotlit vocal performance. According to clips from this listening event, the album will also contain some hip-hop worship, funky passages, tender soul, electronic embellishments, and a lot of sharp and melodically serene songwriting. We’re sure that there’s even more in store, as this album comes after a pretty long wait. But what’s the fun in spoiling the surprises?

Also, this is a very interesting rollout because it followed a curious but welcome reflection on Childish Gambino’s behalf of his past releases. The last album we got before Bando Stone was 2020’s 3.15.20, which he chose to revamp and re-release as the 2024 project Atavista. There were some notable changes and feature additions compared to the original version, plus some wholly unchanged aspects. It’s not really a common sighting in the mainstream or in the underground to handle releases in this way, so we’re glad that this experiment manifested.

Meanwhile, fans are ecstatic to hear about Childish Gambino’s new film soon, for which this new album will apparently be some sort of soundtrack. As with all things Donald Glover, he’s going to wear a lot of hats and make a whole media experience out of his creativity. You certainly won’t find us complaining, especially after how great much of this listening party material sounded. We’re all ready for Bando Stone & The New World, and we can’t wait to explore it.