Topping off his wildly successful year (Atlanta being one of the best new shows, Awaken, My Love! by far being his best musical undertaking to date — not to mention that debuted at no. 1 on Billboard’s R&B Albums Chart), Donald Glover gave an electric performance of “Redbone” on The Tonight Show last night.
The track — the second single from the rapper’s non-rap album Awaken, My Love! — allows him to flaunt his vocal versatility, seeing him singing in a throaty upper register, and it sounded just as good live. Given the flattening effect late night stages can have on live performance, the song’s dynamic pairing of smoothness and bite — with woozy bass and percussion cut by the jaggedness of the voice Glover’s takes on here — was pretty perfectly sustained.
“Redbone” was the no. 8 song on the Hot R&B chart this week, up from its first week as no. 11, and no. 48 on the Hot 100 chart.
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