Top 10 Songs of 2011: #8 Childish Gambino - Hold You Down 

Warning, some unsafe lyrics in this track. Still good though

Donald Glover. It's really unfair.

Helped to write and starred in the hilarious Mystery Team.
Won an Emmy for writing on 30 Rock, including writing "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah".
Stars as Troy on Community, which may go down as one of the top 5 sitcoms of all time.

And he put out a surprisingly good hip hop album in 2011. What's unique and surprising about it (though, if you think about it, it shouldn't be surprising) is the witty wordplay and the flow. It's just different than most stuff you hear. It harkens back a bit to Jurassic 5's clever lyrics and overlapping flow, or maybe MF Doom's references.

I'm sure someone will say that it's perfect music for white people (which is probably true, though language-wise this is certainly not an album that everyone is going to feel comfortable with …). For me, I think there are two stretches of this track that showcase why I dig this one. They standout lyrically and for their message.

Dude you're not not racist cause The Wire's in your Netflix queue

This one is pretty much aimed directly at people like me (though, hopefully, not me). The idea, of course, is that just because you listen to rap or threw The Wire in your Netflix queue doesn't mean you aren't subtly racist in other ways.

This one kid said somethin' that was really bad
He said I wasn't really black because I had a dad
I think that's kinda sad
Mostly cause a lot of black kids think they should agree with that

That doesn't require a lot of explanation. And when that section of the song hits, it actually stings a bit. Which helps explain why this made my list at #8.