Stephen Glover (screenwriter)

• 1. Introduction

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  Stephen Antuan Glover, born on the 18th of June 1988, once recorded rap vocals meant to sound like someone else. The character was Alfred Miles, an aspiring rapper who performs as Paper Boi on the FX series Atlanta, played on screen by Brian Tyree Henry. In an interview with The Fader, Glover said the writing staff would not force Henry to rap if he could not do it convincingly. So his older brother Donald Glover, who stars in Atlanta, asked Stephen to record the vocals for the song "Paper Boi" in the pilot episode. A screenwriter, rapper, actor and producer, Glover became Atlanta's head story editor and one of its writers. His path runs from an untested hire to an award-recognized writer, and into a controversy over his own creative choices. That path crosses a writers room built mostly of Atlanta natives, a parallel rap career under another name, and screen work beyond one FX comedy.

• 2. An Unlikely Hire

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  Donald Glover hired his younger brother to co-write Atlanta, even though Stephen had never worked professionally as a television writer before. Glover's brother wanted the show's writers room to be entirely Black, a choice the publication Vulture described as unprecedented in the industry. The room was made up mostly of people from Atlanta, assembled to keep the show's portrayal of the city accurate. GQ and The Daily Beast both noted that Glover was the top-billed writer on four of the first season's episodes. Those two publications pointed to his personal closeness to Atlanta's black culture as evident throughout the writing. They praised the approach as fresh for television. That same freshness ran through the show's fifth episode, which would draw a very different kind of attention.

• 3. Praise And Pushback

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  Atlanta's fifth episode, titled "Nobody Beats the Biebs," put Glover back in the lead writer's chair. It reimagined the pop star Justin Bieber in an exaggerated, unflattering light. A black actor, Austin Crute, played the role rather than a white one. Various outlets had otherwise praised Glover for scripts that were creative, experimental, and funny in a grounded, true-to-life way. But this particular choice invited sharper scrutiny.

  Aisha Harris, writing for the publication Slate, accused Glover of being "coy" about his reasoning in an interview with Vulture. She pointed specifically to his reluctance to elaborate further on the casting decision. That same reluctance to explain himself contrasts with how openly Glover discusses music, recording under the rap name Steve G. Lover.

• 4. Steve G. Lover

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  GQ described Glover's music as grittier and harder than his brother's, rooted in Atlanta trap. His brother instead records music closer to R&B and indie hip hop, under the name Childish Gambino. In the same GQ interview, fellow Atlanta writer Swank joked that Glover's own mother is puzzled by how different his sound is from his brother's. Glover has appeared as a guest rapper on every Childish Gambino release since Gambino's 2012 mixtape Royalty. His first appearance on a mainstream studio album came with Because the Internet in 2013. His most recent guest spot outside his own releases was on the 2014 Kauai EP.

  Glover has said he has made music since the age of 17. His 2011 mixtape, Frequent Flyer LP, used production from Chemist and Alias Amazin. Chemist, the same producer behind the trap-inspired instrumental for Atlanta's "Paper Boi," returned alone to produce Summer of Steve in 2012. A third mixtape, High Art, followed in 2014. His most recent album, 2016's DJ Rhetorik Presents: Rich Black American, includes several guest performers, among them his brother. That same partnership with his brother also shows up on screen, starting with a film the two made together in 2019.

• 5. Beyond Atlanta

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  Guava Island, a 2019 film, was written by Glover and starred his brother Donald in the lead role. His filmography also includes a 2023 film titled House Party. Across Atlanta's 2016-22 run, Glover wrote 11 episodes, served as story editor on 7 of them, and eventually became the show's showrunner. His credits also include a 2018 Saturday Night Live episode billed as "Donald Glover/Childish Gambino."

  In 2023, Glover wrote the Swarm episode "Running Scared" and both wrote and directed "Fallin' Through the Cracks." He also appeared on screen in Swarm, playing a character named Caché in the episode "Taste." A year later, in 2024, he wrote the episode "Do You Want Kids?" for Mr. & Mrs. Smith. His credits also include the 2011 Childish Gambino music video "Heartbeat." One of those Atlanta episodes, "Streets on Lock," would go on to bring him his most significant industry recognition.

• 6. Industry Recognition

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  In 2016, the Writers Guild of America Awards considered Atlanta in the New Series Episodic Comedy category, citing the episode "Streets on Lock." The following year, the same episode earned a Primetime Emmy Awards nod in the Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series category. By 2018, Saturday Night Live was in contention for two more Primetime Emmy categories. These were Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program. Unlike the two writing-specific honors that came before it, the Outstanding Comedy Series nomination recognized the whole of Saturday Night Live, not a single script.