The problem with releasing anything these days (book, movie, show, album) is that it will inevitably be compared to those that have come before, because nothing's really new lately. This isn't to suggest a lack of creativity from modern-day artists, but it's really tough to be original.
Sounding alike is a by-product of a saturated market. For an artist breaking away from their peers, they often need to look to the past ("subversive" hasn't been a thing since Bjork wrestled a gorilla dentist in the Army of Me video).
So when Childish Gambino released his third album, Awaken, My Love!, in 2016, the comparisons came rolling in: Prince, George Clinton and Parliament, and Andre 3000's The Love Below. But hey, there are worse artists to be compared to.
With Gambino recently winning the Best Traditional R&B Performance Grammy for the track Redbone, it's worth revisiting Awaken.
First, that "traditional R&B" tag: while initially it might seem as though to call Awaken an R&B album would be lazy, Gambino (real name Donald Glover) is in fact making R&B from a time when the genre was experimental, daring, a little dangerous, rather sexy and very interesting.
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