"Late Night in Kauai" by Childish Gambino, Jaden Smith
I don't think this track is simply a song. It feels like a lot more than that. Spoken word. A poem. Two of them as verses by Smith and Fam, with some light rapping by Glover.
It's incredibly... compatible. It's hard to describe. See; anything related to music and poetry, in my opinion, should be able to connect with the person listening to the song in someway. Communicate something through the instruments, through the lyrics, through the inflection. See; I've been to Kauai (the album title and part of this song's title). It's beautiful in it's own aspects. Separate from the other main islands. There's a reason Oahu is called the Gathering Isle; it's home to Honolulu. Most populated place in the islands. Kauai is called the Garden Isle. It feel secluded from everywhere else.
That seclusion makes you contemplate on a lot of shit because it just has this feeling of loneliness, y'know, coming from what can be considered a city-life. But it's not loneliness in a dark corner of the world. It's loneliness in subtle lushness. The Telegraph Ave music video perfectly grasps how it can feel.
And so it establishes the setting in the first verse.
Smith opens the track talking about being on a beach in the night. Just stargazing. The verse is what I'd expect from someone like Smith. As dumb as he can sound through his unfortunate and consistent pairing of capital letters with every single fucking word (and some of his tweets if taken literally), his lyrics hereby goes against that. His descriptions make me picture this beautiful image of Kauai at night, sitting in a car that drove up on the beach just to look at the stars and disconnect from society on a lonely beach with a couple friends. One of which, sounds like a special someone to Smith, who plays "The Boy" in this album. He's just... appreciating her. Without regard for anything else in that very moment. Talkin' bout "...you shouldn't be my wife you should just be with me on this beautiful night" yet following that up a few lines down with "It's just for tonight, and we hope it doesn't end". He's cherishing that piece of time they're havin' together because it's not a forever. Only problem I have with "hope it doesn't end" is that if forever existed, it'd be impossible to give value to a moment.
Next verse is almost like a freestyle by Gambino whose purpose I can somewhat pinpoint. I understand it's talkin' about Gambino as verified by the various references to him, but the one thing I can take from this part of the track is "We are becoming god". I think it's just an egotistical way of tellin' himself he's on top of the world.
That last and final verse is another insightful spoken word by Famuel Rothstein. I don't know much about him as a musician, but based of this poem; it's lyrics, I can see how real he is. This final verse of the song paints a lot of shit that's wrong with modern social media and how susceptible and oblivious one can be based off of what famous person A says. People in today's society not only follow what they say no matter what; they follow it knowing that they have the power of preference. There's this book by Ayn Rand called Anthem; dystopian novel. It's an extreme, but it's pretty accurate in establishing what would happen if everyone's individuality were stripped from them and raised calling preference a transgression. It's what's happening now. Sure, some shit in this world are objective. But Art is the most prevalent thing there is, and yet, there's always a bandwagon onto a certain type of music, a certain genre, a certain product, a certain brand because the masses like it. Just because the masses like it don't mean you always gotta comply with em'. The person Rothestein is talkin' about near the end of the verse is presumably Jaden Smith, since he is referenced previously in the verse. He asks the question "So does it even matter?" And to a certain degree, I think he's asking if it even matters to separate and establish oneself. Separate oneself from the norm; not because you wanna be "different" or you wanna be known for creating something, but because of genuine preference.
I think that this track is tryin' to embody three different perceptions. The perception from a celebrity. The perception of a celebrity from it's viewers/fans/etc. And the perception that the "real" people want them (what Rothstein calls sheep) to really feel and think. Which is to think with individuality. To remove their skewed perceptions and look at artists and their art with genuine partiality. By embodying those perceptions, it makes listeners hear out and break free from their cuffs whose keys are within their grasp.
