Donald Glover Claims He’s “ GQ Best Dressed” on Upcoming Ye Track

Eileen Cartter
·4 min read
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In the recent throes of this year’s biggest rap beef, the internet started pitting rappers against each other. The ammo? Their GQ photoshoots from the 2010s. On X, fans started unearthing photos from dated fashion spreads of yore, and no rap legend was safe: Kendrick Lamar in 2013, air drumming in a skinny suit. Drake in 2010, disparaging the collar gap. Donald Glover in 2011, traipsing around UCLA’s campus dressed like a nerdy-hot freshman in a CW teen drama.

Now, Glover—or, at least, his rap alter-ego Childish Gambino—may be the first to (tangentially) weigh in on the phenomenon by way of a verse on his and Ye’s new unreleased track, ostensibly titled “Say Less,” which he teased Monday night on his Gilga Radio show.

“The aviators got me lookin’ like Five-0 / You ain’t even touched a GQ best dressed / Sty got ’em cheatin’ on a taste test / They like ‘Rap more,’ I’m like ‘Say less,’” raps Gambino on the opening verse.

It’s unclear how recently Glover recorded this verse, or if he is addressing any subpar dressers in particular here. He did, quite recently, clear the air of his rumored feud with Kid Cudi, who will reportedly feature on the upcoming Childish Gambino album—but if there’s any speculation that Glover recorded the track prior to squashing the beef, it would not technically be accurate to say that Cudi has never “even touched a GQ best-dressed” list. Cudder’s frenetic style landed him on a handful of GQ’s best-dressed wrap-ups over the years, albeit far fewer than Glover.

By that metric, Glover is pretty justified in shouting out his own Gentlemen’s Quarterly prowess. His ensembles have featured on several of our biggest-fits lists: an outré Gucci or Ferragamo suit here, a Saint Laurent smoking jacket there; even a teensy pair of running shorts with a bucket hat is enough. (Last year, Glover’s longtime stylist Ilaria Urbinati told me she jokingly refers to him as “my muse.”) And since we launched our annual, reader-voted Most Stylish Man of the Year showdowns nearly a decade ago, Glover’s nabbed a spot on the bracket four times (in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2022), although he’s never taken the title. Meanwhile, Ye—who raps on the final verse that he’s still the one “you oughta get your style from”—won twice, in 2014 and 2015.

Donald Glover, wearing a nubby Zegna set, at the Swarm premiere in 2023.

(Ye’s first verse on “Say Less” is also characteristically fashion-forward: “Now rule number one, ‘Thou shalt not steal’ / The flow, the clothes, the sex appeal, yeah / Now this is my commandment, died and rebrand it / Three days later, walk in the Louis sandals / Duckin’ paparazzi, they would call it a scandal.”)

Fashion bonafides have always been ripe territory for rap brags. In the 1990s and early 2000s, verses centered on having access to the rarest and most expensive European designer goods—but in the long shadow of Pharrell, Ye, and A$AP Rocky, the biggest fashion flex today is having a distinct (and superlative) sense of personal style.

“I’m best dressed moving forward,” Kendrick Lamar rapped on last year’s “The Hillbillies,” a loosie single he released with Baby Keem. (In the accompanying music video, Kendrick wore lots of Martine Rose and Wales Bonner.) In 2020, Lil Yachty told XXL he could dress with the best of them, even if he didn’t “get enough credit for it.” When Complex asked Gunna who he thought was the best-dressed artist in the game in 2022, he replied: “Hello? You’re looking at him. Me!”

In the rap-brag ecosystem, is calling yourself “best dressed” the new “no stylist”?

Originally Appeared on GQ

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