Untouchable

My dad called sayin’, “Son are you okay?
I just listened to ‘The Last’ on your mixtape” 
Dad I’m fine, you just need to understand 
When I’m rappin on a track, that’s exactly who I am 
And all my smart friends sayin, “I really liked the album dude” 
“But you could be the next Mos Def if you wanted to” 
Dear friends, I respect your responses 
But my life is a dream, so I rap unconscious

The verse I chose to close read is off of Childish Gambino’s song “Untouchable” from his 4th studio album Camp. In order to preface the explanations I will be giving, I figure it would be a good idea to give you some background on CG and his rap career. Donald Glover, who raps under the name Childish Gambino, is also an actor and writer. He wrote for NBC’s 30 Rock, before joining the cast of the TV show Community, and also has experience as a stand up comedian. He began his music career with his first studio album that came out in 2008, and continued pursuing this, following up with an EP, 3 mixtapes, and 3 more studio albums (of which, I believe, Culdesac is arguably the best). In terms of character he is generally comedic, intellectual, and well liked; and as a rapper has been called “clever” and “honest”; this all plays into what these lines translate to if you are not fully aware of his persona. 

At the beginning of this verse, the first two lines, are fairly easy to understand to someone within the discourse community. The first is literally CG saying that his dad has called him asking if he’s okay after listening to “The Last” which was a song off of Culdesac. To understand why his father is concerned, you have to see the line in “The Last” which CG is referencing. He is specifically referencing “I wanna call my dad crying but I hang up”; so his father, after having heard this, is contacting his son to see what’s wrong. This would not be easily accessible to someone outside this community, as one would be very unsure of what these references were being made to. The next two lines are essentially what CG responded to his father after having been asked that question. By saying “that’s exactly who I am” he is trying to get the point across that what he is saying is how he feels, the message he would like to send, and that he’s being as honest as possible. This leads me to the assumption that CG uses his music to be more honest with himself and those around him, if it’s not easy to do it face to face. The next two lines are in reference to the responses that he gets from his friends about his music. By saying all his “smart friend...really liked the album” he basically insinuates that you would have to be dumb not to like what he was putting out. Something that shows confidence in his ability, though it might also be a bit of pride as well. Then the next line saying that he “could be the next Mos Def” is saying that the issues he raps about could become more involved on a bigger scale, as Mos Def has done. They believe he could become more well known, and more popular. Mos Def is someone who has become renowned for his social and political views, someone who is known as a “conscious rapper”. This is something else that someone outside this community would not be able to pick up on as easily. The last two lines are again his response to what his friends are telling him. He says that he “respect[s]” what they say but he thinks his “life is a dream”. He believes that his life is already something excellent, and he doesn’t really want/need to touch on those deeper/bigger issues because it does not seem to be something affecting his life. He also thinks that he is at a level that he is happy with, and does not need to strive to attain what someone else has. The last part where he says he raps “unconscious” is a wordplay on saying his life is a dream, as well as a reference to Mos Def being a conscious rapper, something that he is not. 

In all, Childish Gambino seems to use this verse to respond to the critics that are closest around him to explain that what he is doing is exactly what he would like to be doing, and that he is being honest, and won’t trying to be something that he is not. You can see this through his use of specific word choice and sentence structure that help explain his point of view. This is something that also circles back to the title of the song "Untouchable" that he believes he is already doing his best, and doesn't see the need to evolve into other ideas. Something interesting about the rap genre, to me, is that those outside of it will usually have preconceived notions of what the general ideals and messages of these rappers might be. While this may also hold true for any type of discourse community, specifically with rap, it pigeon-holes the categories and doesn’t allow a listener to open up and truly hear what the artist is trying to get across. While you must be fully involved, in my opinion, in this community, before you can understand everything thoroughly; once you are it becomes easy to see how rappers use word play and context to create interesting situations with just a few lines of text.