Childish Gambino’s days are numbered. Donald Glover is making sure he goes out in a blaze of glory.

The 40-year-old Glover’s musical moniker is being retired after a spectacular run that has included six studio albums (if you count an updated reissue), 14 mixtapes, four EPs, five Grammys, a massive hit in R&B jam “Redbone” and an even bigger hit in the zeitgeist-seizing “This Is America.”

But before Gambino goes away for good, Glover has made one last musical effort behind the stage name — “Bando Stone and the New World.” It’s arguably the most expansive and unexpected album of his career.

But that wasn’t enough for a farewell, with the music serving as the soundtrack for a forthcoming feature film — a surreal, post-apocalyptic sci-fi comedy that’ll show only in IMAX theaters this year — and inspiring one last major tour. Scheduled for 60 shows through February across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the third stop of Childish Gambino’s “The New World Tour” will be in Milwaukee on Aug. 14.

It’ll be the first Gambino show in town in a decade. What took so long for Glover to come back to Milwaukee?

“I owe someone there a lot of money,” he joked in a phone interview with the Journal Sentinel earlier this month.

Since Donald Glover’s last Milwaukee concert, his music and TV careers have both taken off
If he were serious, chances are Glover would be good to repay the debt.

When he last played Milwaukee in 2014, his popularity as an actor was rising alongside his music career, thanks to a breakthrough role on NBC’s acclaimed oddball sitcom “Community,” created by Milwaukee native Dan Harmon.

Two years later, Glover became a TV show creator himself, with FX’s “Atlanta,” one of the most innovative and acclaimed series in recent years. The series earned him two Emmys, for directing and outstanding lead actor in a comedy series, and it placed him firmly on the A-list, landing major roles as Simba in the live-action “The Lion King,” Lando Calrissian in “Solo: A Star Wars Story” and, in the past two years, as the co-creator of “Swarm” and star and co-creator of spy comedy series “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” both on Prime Video.

Impressively, his musical creativity and popularity continued to grow alongside his acting, writing, producing and directing career. But just like when Glover pulled the plug on “Atlanta” in 2022 after just four seasons while still operating at a highly innovative level, he had no qualms about bringing Gambino to an end.

“It really did feel like time to do it, and I like endings,” Glover explained. “I like people being able to say their goodbyes. I just feel like trying to make things go forever makes things unnatural, honestly … ”

“I feel like this is a world where we don’t have a lot of value put on things because everything is accessible immediately,” he continued. “So I wanted to be like, ‘Yeah, this isn’t accessible anymore.’ … Maybe if it was valuable to you that’s great, and maybe we can party one last time.”

For Childish Gambino, ‘togetherness’ was top of mind
As he made one last Gambino statement with “Bando Stone,” Glover said one idea he kept thinking about was “togetherness.”

“When COVID happened, I just remember being like, ‘Man, I really miss being able to be around a bunch of people,'” Glover said.

That was clearly apparent when he played Lollapalooza in 2019 in front of one of the Chicago festival’s largest audiences. Glover carved out more time than most festival headliners to admire his surroundings, engage with individual fans and soak in the collective energy from the crowd.

“I made this album, the music, consciously trying to make quote ‘stadium songs,'” he continued. “(‘Bando Stone’ single) ‘Lithonia’ is like my attempt at arena rock. … These are big songs. These are meant for people to sing together and be together. … That was the idea, let’s go fully maximalist and see what happens.”

That maximalist mission comes through in a variety of ways, making “Bando Stone” Gambino’s most musically versatile and unexpected collection — quite a feat for an artist who has made versatility and defiance of expectations a calling card.

We get the gripping hip-hop side of Gambino that first caught attention, most viscerally from the chest-thumping, trap-throbbing and drumbeat-smacking “Yoshinoya.” But there’s also the snappy emo-pop rock of “Running Around,” and the absorbing jazz and Afrobeat grooves of the seven-minute “No Excuses.”

The latter is a collaboration with one of Gambino’s most frequent music partners: “This Is America” co-producer Ludwig Göransson, whose star also has risen in recent years as composer for “The Mandalorian” and his Oscar-winning scores for “Black Panther” and “Oppenheimer.”

But maximalist takes a completely different shape for the trippy and radiant “Can You Feel Me,” with its surprising but surprisingly moving sample of Ladysmith Black Mambazo from an episode of “Sesame Street,” and featuring vocals by Glover’s oldest son, Legend. (All of Glover’s three kids will be joining him on the road, Glover said.)

Laid back with sparse beats, “Feel Me” features some of Gambino’s prettiest vocals, but the maximalism here is the deep feeling of the words, from Glover mourning the death of his father and confessing to the unbearable pain he experienced, to a touching and inspiring life lesson Legend took from his father: “Daddy took me to the side/Told me it’s OK to cry.”

Donald Glover’s latest musical mission: ‘Focus more on the process’
Ultimately, what Glover said he sought to accomplish with “Bando Stone,” beyond creating togetherness, was finding more joy.

“I just tried to focus more on the process,” he said. “I feel like part of making this and part of getting older was like none of that was going to make you happy if you’re sitting there … looking for gratitude or understanding or Grammys or numbers. …

“I feel like all that stuff is fun, but I was just like, ‘Man, I have to get used to just enjoying the process more,’ because I feel like before I wasn’t enjoying it too much because I was trying too hard to prove something to myself. This album allowed me to be like, ‘I don’t have to prove anything to myself anymore.’ I like doing this.”

Gambino is ending, but Glover suspects he’ll continue to be “inspired to make music in a very different way.” But after the “New World” tour, Glover said, his touring days will be done for the foreseeable future.

“There’s just too much happening,” he said. “I’m filming a lot, building a lot.”

That includes the creation of an ambitious new production company, Gilga.

“Touring requires all of you physically, mentally. … It’s just a full-time job, and at this time in my life I can’t do it.”

But Glover said he’s excited to give his all to the last tour, from busting out his cinematic new songs to playing with new technology — long an interest of his live-music career, going back as far as his innovatively staged “Because the Internet” tour that last brought him to Milwaukee in 2014.

And even though it was 10 years ago, Glover vividly remembers that stop, thanks in large part to the venue he played, the Rave, and its striking empty pool. Glover was so intrigued by the place that he and two of his “Atlanta” writing partners who were at that show, including his brother Stephen, found a way to give the venue and its allegedly haunted reputation a shout-out on an episode in 2022.

“We went down there in the basement and went in the pool and I was like, ‘This is crazy,'” Glover recalled. “It had a really big impact on us. … We all just remember it as being a highlight of the tour.”