pgLang and Gilga: Beyond creative studios
pgLang and Gilga: Beyond creative studios
Gilga (founded by Donald Glover) and pgLang (co-founded by Kendrick Lamar) are shifting the meaning of integrated marketing.
pgLang
A video played while we were waiting for Kendrick Lamar’s The Big Steppers Tour to start. It was a beautifully art-directed conversation between three people: someone needing money advice, an investor, and Kendrick sitting as the translator between them. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a Cash App ad from Lamar’s own studio, pgLang.
“Anybody that’s every made a lot of money didn’t make it fast."
Launched in 2020, co-founders Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free say pgLang is “a multi-lingual company, selflessly communicating this generation's creative language through mediums exemplifying the shared experiences that connect us all.” In a press release, Free clarified that pgLang isn't a record label, movie studio, or production house. "This is something new. In this overstimulated time, we are focused on cultivating raw expression from grassroots partnerships."
👀 pgLang stands for program language
In short, pgLang houses both artistic and marketing pursuits—Grammys and Independent Agency awards living side by side. I suspect they’ll eventually be given for the same work.
Kendrick, grounded in narrative, and Dave, thinking in image and tools, has been a creative partnership that reaches back decades, back when Dave was a teenager obsessed with all the new technology and Kendrick was the first person he’d met “that didn’t care about the [expletive] that all the kids cared about.” - The New York Times
Before writing this article, I’d have said the only thing connecting Cash App, Calvin Klein, and Converse is that they all start with a “C.” Now, I can tell you all three have incredibly smart and trusting in-house teams. Just check out these more recent ads for a Converse x pgLang collab.
“I can't believe I'm getting my aura photo taken right now.
They said this camera can read my energy?”
No title cards.✅
Featured studio name. ✅
No obvious campaign through line. ✅
One of them is just vibes. ✅
pgLang’s creative direction is undeniable because Lamar and Free are undeniable. Their perspectives go deeper than agencies or record labels are used to going. When they can work in this higher-control format instead of just as talent, “something new” really does happen. And as a client, you get to become part of the coveted pgLang universe.
Which, coincidentally, isn’t too far from another growing nebula.
Gilga
Earlier this year (I suspect it’s been a long time coming), Donald Glover launched Gilga. Though the website was, and still is, pretty limited, Glover explained the deets in a feature GQ interview. I can’t recommend the whole thing enough, but here are our highlights:
The goal with Gilga, he says, is to only put out the freshest entertainment and art. “You know how you go to a farmers market and you ask for peaches, and they don’t have any because they’re out of season?” Glover says. “Peaches have a season! I’m not gonna sell you shitty peaches just because you want a peach now.”
“I guess corruption for Gilga would be when we stop moving like a rich kid….Rich kids don’t do shit for money. They do things based on if it’s gonna make them happy. Like, that’s really what I realized this last go-around. I made a lot of money, and it wasn’t that I was depressed or anything like that, but I realized it’s the people I was around that mattered. It’s the food I was able to eat. It’s the processes I was a part of that made me happy. People don’t get quality anymore and they need a filter. Gilga is a perfect filter for that shit.”
He tells me that the logo is a door.“Since I was a kid, I’ve had this nightmare where I’m in a house and there’s a mob or zombies or police that are all trying to get me…My brother told me he thinks that dream is trying to tell me that there’s a way out. There’s always a way out.”
👀 Gilga is short for Gilgamesh, a mythic Mesopotamian hero who angered the gods. Like pgLang, everything about Gilga is intentionally different, culturally relevant, and artistic in nature. When Glover put out a call for resumes, the job descriptions and intro video stole my heart and blew my mind. The physical “production company/incubator/cultural library” is even on Glover’s own farm in Ojai, California. Yes, Gilga includes has agricultural department.
The first and only ad ad from the studio is for Bose headphones. Over thirty seconds of almost non-stop motion, we experience a day in the life on Gilga farms. Bose headphones in tow, of course.
Glover: [This song] needs more work.
Crew member: Yeah…
Glover: Sounded great though.
A whole new world
This handful of spots shows Gilga and pgLang’s vision for the future. They’re creating new approaches to marketing by demanding more of their own skin and perspective in the game.
It’s a future where you can make ads that look like films. And like a film, you can, and should, put your name on it. You can move in a capitalist system with taste and share that elevated perspective with others. And more than anything, you can offer something instead of selling it.