Annotation:

Dropping amid ongoing political and cultural tumult and turmoil, Childish Gambino’s “This is America” appears to be a commentary on black life in America and American culture as a whole. It contrasts popular culture’s perception of the black experience and its often brutal reality by juxtaposing happy, carefree choruses and dark, aggressive verses.

This contrast may also allude to the cyclical shifts in mood whenever there is a shooting in America. One second, the entire nation is in an uproar, the next, they are happy and unconcerned, placated by pop culture trends.

In the music video, directed by frequent Gambino collaborator Hiro Murai, Gambino portrays this comparison by dancing around gleefully with school-aged children, seemingly unbothered by the chaotic scenes of violence in the background. However, in the short film’s final scene, Gambino is seen running frantically through a darkened warehouse trying to escape the mob that now chases him; a reminder that if America chooses to remain willfully ignorant of its problems, they will inevitably be the country’s downfall.

“This is America” is Gambino’s first single since he dropped the 2016 studio album Awaken, My Love!. The song’s release coincided with Gambino’s appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he performed the new track, along with “Saturday,” another new track.^[1]

Song Facts:

1. This politically charged anthem finds Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover) addressing the police brutality, gun violence and racism that continued to ravage America in 2018. Written and produced by Glover and his longtime collaborator Ludwig Göransson, The song was released on May 6, 2018, at the same time Glover was both host and musical guest on that day’s episode of Saturday Night Live.

2. “This Is America” was born as a jokey Drake diss track. According to Donald Glover, he pitched the idea to director Hiro Murai three years before they finally worked on it. “I told Hiro the idea, and he’s like, ‘I really want to do that,’” he said in a video accompanying a GQ interview in which the actor/rapper broke down his most iconic roles.

   Glover said the song initially began as a humorous way of taking shots at Drake, but as he started playing around with the concept, he realized it had the potential to be something powerful. The inspiration for “This Is America” came from the Black Lives Matter protests that were happening at the time, and Glover wanted to create a trap version of “We Are The World.”

   The supposed beef between Glover and Drizzy originated at a 2014 Australian gig when he said his rapper alter ego, Childish Gambino, was better than Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and ScHoolboy Q combined. Gambino later clarified that it was all in good fun and he has since become friends with Drake.

3. Throughout the song, there are ad-libs sprinkled in the background from noted Black Atlanta artists 21 Savage, Quavo, Slim Jxmmi and Young Thug. The latter returns to supply the song’s outro.

4. Memphis rapper BlocBoy JB also contributes an ad-lib, heard during the video when Gambino and the dancing youngsters do the viral dance move that he popularized with his “Shoot” single. BlocBoy recalled recording his contribution to Billboard:

   “[Gambino] reached out to my people. He needed my words. [My manager] was like, ‘Childish Gambino wants your vocals.’ [They] made it seem like an organ [donation]. That beat was so mother—ing hard, and that’s all that was. As soon as I heard that mother—er, I was like, ‘Man, I ain’t going to lie, I want to rap on his motherf—er.’ But then I was like, ‘I’m just going to do what they say,’ because I said I was going to record [ad-libs]. I said I was going to keep it simple. I had other music to get back to anyway.”

5. The provocative video was directed by Hiro Murai, who previously worked with Glover on his Atlanta show. A statement on gun control, it starts with a shirtless Gambino dancing in a warehouse, and then 53 seconds into the visual, he suddenly shoots an anonymous man in the head. Later on, Gambino mows down the gospel choir while they’re singing the refrain. Amidst all the carnage, Gambino continues to perform several viral dance moves with an entourage of young dancers. R&B songbird SZA makes a cameo appearance in the aftermath of the massacre.

   The video won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video.

   The song features a gospel choir that sings on the introduction and the refrain.

6. Childish Gambino was accused on social media of ripping off New York rapper Jase Harley’s 2016 track “American Pharaoh” for this song. While both tunes do indeed feature dark lyrics about being black in America over a menacing beat, Harley seemed to be relaxed about the alleged musical theft, saying, “I feel extremely humbled to be recognized and labeled as one of, or the original inspiration, for one of the most important pieces of music and visual art of our time.”

7. This was the UK’s Guardian newspaper’s Song of the Year for 2018. “And music video of the century while we’re at it,” they added.

8. The song took a couple of years to complete. “We started out with the beat and then I think within an hour [we had] the main hook,” Ludwig Göransson told Entertainment Weekly. “We made like 80 percent of the song within two hours, and then to finish the rest, it took like two more years.”

9. In addition to Best Music Video, this won the Grammy Awards for Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year and Best Rap/Sung Performance. Gambino didn’t attend the ceremony, but in accepting Record Of The Year, his engineer Riley Mackin said: “No matter where you’re born or what country you’re from, you connect with ‘This Is America.’ It speaks to people - it connects right to your soul. It calls out injustice, it celebrates life, and reunites us all at the same time.”

10. This was the first hip-hop song to win the Grammy Award for either Song Of The Year or Record Of The Year. He was offered a performance spot on the broadcast, but turned it down.

11. A Florida rapper named Kidd Wes brought legal action against Gambino, claiming this song copied his own 2016 track “Made In America.” A Manhattan federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in March 2023 after pointing out key lyrical differences.

12. It was the song’s engineer Alex Tumay who suggested the idea of getting multiple rappers to deliver ad-libs on the track. Tumay is known for his work with Young Thug and Travis Scott, both of whom are known for littering their rhymes with short phrases such as “Skrrt!” and “It’s lit!”

    Tumay said:

    “I just gave the idea to go get a bunch of rappers to do adlibs on the track instead of any traditional features. The song has this all-encompassing energy and I felt like that was the best way to capture it.”

13. Childish Gambino and Hiro Murai did their homework before creating the powerful video for “This Is America.” The duo studied Michael Jackson’s iconic “Thriller” video, asking themselves how they could create a moment that would make people care.

14. To give the video a more dramatic effect, they shot it on film, and it took them just three takes to get that “continuous” feel.^[2]