Donald Glover clarifies Childish Gambino retirement remarks

Rapper/actor Donald Glover has cleared up reports he is hanging up the microphone after one more album, insisting he is only retiring his hip-hop moniker Childish Gambino.

The star took fans by surprise as he performed at the Governors Ball festival in New York on Saturday night (03Jun17) and suggested he will be quitting music after his next studio release.

"Look out (for) the final Childish Gambino album," he told the stunned crowd.

Glover didn't elaborate on his remark at the time, but he has now shed a little light on the meaning of his comment, insisting the follow-up to 2016's Awaken, My Love! will simply be his last under his rap alter ego.

Explaining his desire to bow out as Gambino while at the top of his game, he told The Huffington Post, "There's nothing worse than like a third sequel, like a third movie and we're like, 'Again?' You know, I like it when something's good and when it comes back there's a reason to come back, there's a reason to do that."

The 33-year-old also cites his desire to stick to his "punk" mentality when it comes to his music and not become too much of a mainstream artist.

"I feel like there's gotta be a reason to do things and I always had a reason to be punk," he said. "Being punk just always felt really good to me and we always looked at (his hit TV series) Atlanta as a punk show and I feel like the direction I would go with Childish Gambino wouldn't be punk anymore. As much as Redbone is a punk song because it's a gospel song that's on the radio, I'm like, there's only so far you can go before you just are the radio."

In the meantime, Glover has plenty of acting work to keep him busy while he contemplates his next music move. He is currently working on the second season of his critically-acclaimed comedy/drama series Atlanta, while he is also set to voice the role of Simba in Disney's The Lion King remake, and feature in the forthcoming Star Wars spin-off movie about Han Solo.