“This Is America” (2018) is a song and music video by Childish Gambino, the nom de rap of US actor Donald Glover, he of “Atlanta” (2016- ). The video has gone viral, getting 33 million views on YouTube in the first 48 hours. It is now past 60 million.
Spoilers: If you have not seen it yet, I do not want to ruin it for you. Try this link (might not work in all countries or after five years or so):
Warning: graphic gun violence:
The video features a Charleston-style church massacre, schoolchildren who are up on the latest dance moves, a Ferguson-style uprising, a burning police car, even the White Horse of the Apocalypse (which is a sign of the end of the world in the Bible). It is a world where guns are valued more than people. This is America.
My interpretation: Gambino did not provide a cheat sheet. He left it open to interpretation. Here is mine:
The video goes like this:
- La-la-la-la singing and dancing.
- Randomly insert a shooting or some other act of terror.
- The singing stops, the music changes, becomes darker, and Gambino says “This is America”.
- After a minute or so the shooting has been forgotten. Go back to step one and repeat.
That is America! Suddenly, “out of the blue”, there is some senseless, hideous shooting and it is like everything stops – but then two weeks later the shooting is all but forgotten, only for the whole thing to repeat weeks or months later. On and on. It is strange to see it in a music video – because music in the US largely functions as a distraction.
The image that most sticks in my mind is Gambino singing and dancing
with the schoolchildren while all hell is breaking loose (pictured at top), and he says:
I’m on Gucci
I’m so pretty (yeah, yeah)
Even though he knows:
Police be trippin’ now.
Music, dance, religion, fashion and drugs all appear in the video as an escape from a world gone mad, as a way of not going mad yourself. And yet they help keep that mad world in place.
Stereotypes: The strange dance Gambino does at the beginning is taken from the minstrel show character Jim Crow. Gambino plays both Happy Darky and Black Brute, stereotypes driven by White paternalism (darkies) and White guilt (brutes). When shown together in a video, they seem strange and contradictory – because they are. But the fear of the Black Brute helps drive the need for Happy Darkies.
Happy Darkies are not enough: Gambino’s singing and dancing comes to an end as he is chased through the dark by White people, all of his grinning replaced by a look of terror on his face.
You just a black man in this world
You just a barcode, ayy
You just a black man in this world
Drivin’ expensive foreigns, ayy
You just a big dawg, yeah
I kenneled him in the backyard
No, probably ain’t life to a dog
For a big dog
This is America.
– Abagond, 2018.
See also:
- songs, the 2010s
- stereotype
- Charleston Massacre
- Ferguson
- Further context:
Lyrics:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, go, go away
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, go, go away
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, go, go away
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, go, go away
We just wanna party
Party just for you
We just want the money
Money just for you
I know you wanna party
Party just for me
Girl, you got me dancin’
Dance and shake the frame
We just wanna party
Party just for you
We just want the money
Money just for you
I know you wanna party
Party just for me
Girl, you got me dancin’
Dance and shake the frame
This is America
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Look what I’m whippin’ up
This is America
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Look what I’m whippin’ up
This is America
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Look at how I’m livin’ now
Police be trippin’ now
Yeah, this is America
Guns in my area (word, my area)
I got the strap
I gotta carry ’em
Yeah, yeah, I’ma go into this
Yeah, yeah, this is guerilla, woo
Yeah, yeah, I’ma go get the bag
Yeah, yeah, or I’ma get the pad
Yeah, yeah, I’m so cold like, yeah (yeah)
I’m so dope like, yeah
We gon’ blow like, yeah (straight up, uh)
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
You go tell somebody
Grandma told me
Get your money, black man (get your money)
Get your money, black man (get your money)
Get your money, black man (get your, black man)
Get your money, black man (get your, black man)
Black man
This is America (woo!)
Don’t catch you slippin’ up (woo, woo, don’t catch you slippin’, now)
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Look what I’m whippin’ up (slime!)
This is America (yeah, yeah)
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Look what I’m whippin’ up
Look how I’m geekin’ out
I’m so fitted (I’m so fitted)
I’m on Gucci
I’m so pretty (yeah, yeah)
I’m gon’ get it (ayy, I’m gon’ get it)
Watch me move
This a celly
That’s a tool
On my Kodak (woo, Black)
Ooh, know that (yeah, know that, hold on)
Get it? (Get it? Get it?)
Ooh, work it (21)
Hunnid bands, hunnid bands, hunnid bands (hunnid bands)
Contraband, contraband, contraband (contraband)
I got the plug on Oaxaca
They gonna find you like blocka
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
(America, I just checked my following list and)
You go tell somebody
(You mothafuckas owe me)
Grandma told me
Get your money, black man (black man)
Get your money, black man (black man)
Get your money, black man (black man)
Get your money, black man (black man)
Black man
One, two, three, get down
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
You go tell somebody
Grandma told me
Get your money, black man (black man)
Get your money, black man (black man)
Get your money, black man (black man)
Get your money, black man (black man)
Black man
You just a black man in this world
You just a barcode, ayy
You just a black man in this world
Drivin’ expensive foreigns, ayy
You just a big dawg, yeah
I kenneled him in the backyard
No, probably ain’t life to a dog
For a big dog
Source: letras.mus.br.
1101
This is a performance piece it is quite provocative and probably triggers people who have been victims of gun violence. I do like the beats and the dancing. So many think piece about what this performance piece is about.
Art is subjective there is no right or wrong, this performance piece is open to interpretation.
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Thanks for putting that together for us; i was seeing bits and pieces on social media.
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Reblogged this on League of Bloggers For a Better World and commented:
“It is a world where guns are valued more than people. This is America.” -Abagond
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So… Let’s talk about how the racism and overall ignorance of white people made this video necessary.
Discuss.
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The Black man is innocently playing the guitar without any worries. He sat down on the chair @20 seconds into the video at first is wearing a clean set of clothing. However, when Gambino shoot him in the back of the head @52 seconds, he is now wearing tattered clothes and he appears to be disheveled.
Also, his hands are now bound, symbolic of the ever present restraints intentionally placed on Black men in Amerika or in the alternative, … slavery. Gambino seems to be sending a message that whether Black people realizes this or not or even if they continue to think that we are a free people, we aren’t.
@55 seconds, Gambino is seen handing over the weapon to a young Black man. To me, this symbolizes how we. As Ba stolen group of people, are sometimes complicit in our own internecine violence targeting each other, namely, Los Angeles, Oakland, Miami, Chicago and Brooklyn, amongst other cities as well.
@58 seconds, suddenly, two teenager looking so-called African Americans appear. They then drag the victim off to the side. There was no mourning or showing of concern. Life goes on I guess.
@2:44, Gambino appears to have symbolically shoot another person but this time, by merely extending his arms and as if his right index finger is wrapped around the trigger of a pistol. Suddenly, he appears awoken from a zombie state; light up a cigarette and walks away.
The lady sitting on the hood of the car @3:21 seconds, appears to have suffered a gunshot wound or some other blunt force trauma to her left chest area resulting in her death as well.
Also @3:21, the guy that was shot to death by Gambino @20 seconds, now reappears to the left rear of the screen, sitting on the same chair, with the same hood on his head, but playing the guitar again. I guess this is supposed to represent the spirit world.
On one hand, @3:44, near the very end of the video, Gambino is seen running down a dark corridor with a group of white people in hot pursuit. To me, this symbolizes the Black man’s wish to escape the ubiquitous plantation and/or the white man’s oppressive system.
But on the other hand, the scene at the end of the video could also be representative of karma or “what goes around, comes around.”
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Looks like the white world is finally weighing in on “This is America” with some thoroughly whitewashed parody. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW8whgmyTNU)
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Donald Glover has always been and still remains an enigma to me. Only Donald Glover knows what this music video and symbolism means. One thing is for certain he’s got everybody having conversations and writing think pieces. And that’s what interesting art does gets people talking and feeling and thinking.
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Yeah, this is America alright another school shooting in Texas today. Never heard of Santa Fe, Texas. Ten people dead by some white boy in a trench coat.
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[…] via Childish Gambino: This Is America — Abagond […]
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Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ Becomes First Rap Song to Win Record of the Year Grammy
https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/grammys/8497638/childish-gambino-this-is-america-wins-record-of-the-year-grammys
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