“Redbone” is about paranoia and infidelity in a relationship. As a slang term, “redbone” distinguishes a lighter-skinned black person of mixed race. Bino fears that his efforts to keep this woman satisfied will drive her away.
In a Genius video, Ludwig Göransson, the song’s producer, recreated “Redbone” and explained that it was heavily inspired by Funkadelic, George Clinton’s 1970s psychedelic funk band. According to Göransson, Gambino even sent him Funkadelic’s music as a reference point for the production, which was created mostly on live instruments.
Gambino first revealed “Redbone” at his Pharos concert experience, but it officially premiered on BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac’s Hottest Record. The track received worldwide recognition shortly thereafter, shooting to #12 on Billboard’s Hot 100 list. It got a second wind almost four months later when parodies of the song turned it into a meme.
“Redbone” was featured in the opening credits of Jordan Peele’s horror film, Get Out. In a February 2017 interview with Hip Hop DX, Jordan revealed why he picked the record for the movie:
Well, first of all, I love the ‘Stay Woke’–that’s what this movie is about. I wanted to make sure that this movie satisfied the black horror movie audience’s need for characters to be smart and do things that intelligent and observant people would do.
The song won a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance at the 2018 Grammys held on Jan. 28, 2018.
Donald Glover — actor, comedian, writer, producer, rapper, songwriter — has set himself a complex cultural project: to both embody current African-American culture and reveal it to the wider world. He has done that on albums under his musical alias, Childish Gambino, and also as the driving force of “Atlanta,” the superb TV series on FX on which he is an executive producer, writer and actor, presenting a street-level corrective to the glamour-and-guns hip-hop fantasies of “Empire.”
“Awaken, My Love!,” his third album as Childish Gambino, takes a sharp turn: from rapping to full-time singing and from contemporary production to unabashed throwback. The music directly recalls the 1970s R&B before hip-hop — the era of Parliament-Funkadelic; Earth, Wind & Fire; Stevie Wonder; the Spinners; the Chi-Lites; the Ohio Players; late Sly and the Family Stone; and early Prince.
It’s at once a homage and a parody, equally aware of that era’s excesses and its glories, of the way that the most memorable 1970s R&B merged sensuality, activism, humor, toughness, outlandishness, futurism, soul roots, wild eccentricity and utopian community spirit.
That’s an extremely high bar, but at its best, “Awaken, My Love!” recalls many of those virtues. “Have Some Love” and “Stand Tall” pick up the messages of countless soul and R&B predecessors, calling for solidarity and self-reliance. And “Boogieman,” over a funky fuzztone riff, confronts racist assumptions that lead to rising violence.
The album shares the perils of all revivalism: that it’s an emulation and pastiche rather than an invention, that it’s nostalgic rather than contemporary. Mr. Glover, born in 1983, never heard the music in its original time frame. But he inhabits it like an actor who’s done his homework to get fully immersed in a role.
Mr. Glover’s longtime collaborator in Childish Gambino, the Swedish musician and producer Ludwig Goransson, realistically reconstructs the greasy guitar tones, sliding synthesizers, eager backup vocals, snappy drums and chattering clavinet of 1970s-vintage production. And luckily, Mr. Glover can sing passably enough. He knows he’s not the one to put across a full-throated love ballad; he doesn’t try. But he’s well-suited to more cartoonish 1970s approaches: yowls and cackles, grainy screams, squeezed-out falsettos, zany swoops between speech and song.
Sometimes Childish Gambino shares the songwriting credits directly with its influences, like the Funkadelic members behind the frantic funk of “Riot!” Other songs hold obvious echoes; “Baby Boy,” a ballad that worries over fatherhood and custody, directly models its sparse arrangement on “Just Like a Baby” by Sly and the Family Stone. But Childish Gambino generally makes good use of what it borrows. “Zombies” deploys its P-Funk-style synthesizers to ooze along nicely as it sets up a slow-creeping horror-movie scenario that doubles as a warning about exploitation. “Redbone” and “Terrified,” two falsetto ballads laced with paranoia and fear, stay poised between plush vocal-group soul and synthesizer subversion.
The songs don’t hide their second-generation status. Mr. Glover often sings about lessons from elders and the responsibilities of parenthood. But Childish Gambino doesn’t invoke the comforts of nostalgia. The songs recognize, instead, that for all the changes in styles over the decades, other conditions persist — human needs and weaknesses, societal pressures — and that music still strives to face down the problems without stopping the party.
Childish Gambino might’ve recorded his upcoming album Awaken, My Love! in a time machine. After channelling ‘70s Parliament Funkadelic on “Me and Your Mama,” he goes retro soul for “Redbone,” the single he premiered today on BBC Radio.
“Redbone” channels bassist Jaco Pastorius‘ 1976 song “Portrait Of Tracy,” which is prominently sampled in SWV’s “Rain” and Chingy’s “Pullin' Me Back.” The track finds Childish singing in a high register:
Niggas creepin'
They gon' find you
Gon' catch you sleepin'
Childish Gambino spoke with Billboard about how the music he heard as a child influenced his recent output—particularly Awaken, My Love!, which drops December 2.
“I remember listening to songs my dad would play—albums by the Isleys or Funkadelic—and not understanding the feeling I was feeling,” he says. “I remember hearing a Funkadelic scream and being like, ‘Wow, that’s sexual and it’s scary.’ Not having a name for that, though; just having a feeling. That’s what made it great.”
Read all of the lyrics to Childish Gambino’s “Redbone” on Genius.
Childish Gambino Redbone Sample Song
Is Childish Gambino's Redbone a Remake of Another Song or Has he Used Samples in the Song?
I placed a bet with a friend of mine who is certain that Childish Gambino's 'Redbone' is either a remake of an older song or has used samples from other songs and has to pay royalties. I have shown the below evidence to said friend yet he still believes that he has won this bet despite having shown zero evidence to prove this 'truth'.
What Song Does Childish Gambino Redbone Sample
[WhoSampled.com showing that 'Redbone' does not contain samples from other songs but has been sampled in other songs] (http://www.whosampled.com/Childish-Gambino/Redbone/)
Mii channel music download. [Childish Gambino singing 'Redbone' Live] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezbsbkqoRrs)
I think that my friend is confused and is probably thinking that Childish Gambino has sampled Bootsy Collins' 'I'd Rather Be With You' but apart from the songs being somewhat similar and there possibly being some musical influence, they are two completely different songs.
Can I please ask that Childish Gambino fans comment here and help my friend to understand that he has lost this bet..?
Edit: Formatting/Spelling.