Childish Gambino honors Outkast with live cover of ‘Prototype’
Written by ABC Audio All Rights Reserved on December 5, 2025
Childish Gambino is paying tribute to Outkast with a live cover of their song “Prototype,” initially teased during his recent set at Camp Flog Gnaw.
“Outkast showed me what freedom in music could sound like,” Childish Gambino said in a statement. “They made it possible to be completely yourself—to be Southern, to be experimental, to dream bigger than what people expected of you.”
“A song like ‘Prototype’ felt like the start of something new—a vision of love, sound, and identity still taking shape. It showed how far you could stretch hip-hop, how honest and strange and beautiful it could be,” he continued. “There’s a little bit of Outkast in everything I’ve ever done, and this cover is my way of honoring that.”
The cover arrives just weeks after Gambino honored Outkast at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
“Your influence echoes in everything and every artist I love,” he said at the time. “Atlanta is not the music mecca it has become without you. There is no Childish Gambino without you. There is no South without you.”
His version of “Prototype” is exclusively available on Amazon Music; the original rendition, from Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below album, can be found on DSPs.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
KVSP