On March 15, 2020, Childish Gambino‘s (Donald Glover) fourth album was uploaded to donaldgloverpresents.com before being taken down 12 hours later. It was then available on streaming services on March 22. 3.15.20 was an album named after its initial release date full of experimental demos named after their timestamp relative to the album as a whole. It was very underappreciated and not given a chance by many due to its numeral titles and release date. He removed this album from all streaming services on May 9, 2024.
On May 13, 2024, with no explanation or lead-up, Glover announced Atavista, the finished version of 3.15.20, to his Twitter account @donaldglover.
Algorhythm and Time (feat. Ariana Grande) stayed the same since they were already named, despite a few tweaks to the mixing.
All tracks were properly mixed and renamed, with 12.38 changing to Psilocybae (Millenial Love) (feat. 21 Savage, Ink, and Kadhja Bonet), 19.10 to To Be Hunted, 47.48 to The Violence, and 53.49 to Final Church.
Some tracks got new features, like Summer Walker on Sweet Thang (previously 24.19) and Young Nudy on Little Foot Big Foot (previously 35.31).
A few songs were cut a bit short for length reasons, but Why Go To The Party (39.28) got it the worst. The original song was 3 minutes and the Atavista version does not even reach a minute. This was an extremely poor choice as 39.28 was a highlight of the original album.
Forget being cut short, a few songs were completely cut out from the album and not reworked. The only way to access 0.00 and 32.22 now is through reposts of 3.15.20 on YouTube. I wasn’t particularly attached to either song, so I wasn’t sad to see them go, and I won’t seek them out when I listen to this album. 42.26 was not included either, but it is available on the 2018 EP Summer Pack as Feels Like Summer.
The new additions Human Sacrifice and the titular track Atavista aren’t anything new either. On previous tours, Glover performed another song called Atavista which is very different from the new release. Human Sacrifice was an unnamed song performed in Duluth, Georgia on the 2018 This Is America Tour. The name was revealed in a setlist from the 2018 New Zealand PHAROS event.
Overall, I don’t understand the backlash against the new and improved 3.15.20. The previous album was obviously unfinished and a revised version was inevitable. Besides the loss of 2 minutes of Why Go To The Party, Atavista is just yet another stroke of genius from Childish Gambino.