This is America Review

On the 6th of May Childish Gambino, who claimed last year that his album ‘Awaken My Love’ was his last, dropped the song and visual ‘This is America’ and within 3 days it has massed 46 million views. This is a song that doesn’t beat around the bush and outrightly calls out all the corruption in America. Most statements about America are said after the consistently used Anaphora ” this is America’ and we as viewers actively ignore the corruption in the background to focus on Gambino’s extremely impressive dance moves. This is a video you need to watch at least three times if you want to grasp its creative and political concept. I am splitting this post into the lyrical aspect of the song as usual but all the visual side as this is something that cannot be overlooked.

Firstly I’m going to break down the song lyrically and musically (if that is even the right word to use). The song starts of with what I can assume is a gospel choir and soon after Gambino and uncredited feature Young Thug come in with the line “we just want to party, party just for you, we just want the money, money just for you.”  These lines seem to represent the selfishness and vanity of Americans and how they would rather focus on these aspects instead of the corruption and political issues that have been brought to the surface recently. Through out these lyrics the instrumental can be described as soulful and slightly Afro/ Caribbean-esque. However, once the chorus comes in with “this is America, don’t catch you slipping up”, the beat changes to a hard trap beat that generates intense feelings and slight anger in the listener.

In the first verse Gambino calls out the glorification of gun violence in Rap (“I’ve got the strap”) and the political issue of Police and how they use their weapons (” Police be tripping now”). Gambino even references Guerrilla warfare. However instead of saying warfare he replaces it with “woo” and this could even have been Guerrilla shit because he is trying to convey the extent of the bad situation. Gambino censoring this brings up ideas of censorship and also the reoccurring idea that we cover up real issues. In the second verse Gambino begins referencing the material things and this could be the calling out of social media and how again we distract ourselves from real issues by looking through a screen. “I’m on Gucci”, “I’m so pretty”. He then outrightly calls out the use of phones as “a tool”. Phones have been used to document riots and police shootings. this line could also be a reference to the death of Stephon Clark on March 30th 2018. Police shot him and all that was found on him was a phone.

Young Thug closes out this song saying  “You just a black man in this world, you just a barcode.” possibly it is being said that despite having all they have, due to racism they are still just seen as another black man.

In this song we hear many ad-libs something that Gambino doesn’t really do but once you listen out (and check genius…) then you can see the star studded list of feature Gambino pulled together: 21 Savage, Blockboy JB, Offset, Young Thug, Quavo, Slim Jxmmi. 

Now that I have spoken about the lyrics I’m going to a do a brief overview of the video. First I’m going to talk about the two shootings. When I first watched the video I was shocked by the shooting of the man on the guitar, yet the message was clear. Gambino immediately places his gun gently into a cloth held by a school boy, yet we wait a bit longer for the dead body to be dragged carelessly away. This conveys the message that America cares more about guns and gun laws that it does about human life. Later in the video when the gospel choir is gunned down, we cannot help but compare it to the shooting in Charleston. The video spoke volumes with little explanation.

Now I will discuss the Gambino’s dance moves which I have to admit, even though it was the point he was trying to prove, were amazing. Gambino dances around this warehouse with a group of school kids and they do a lot of famous dance trends such as the ‘shoot dance’. This drives the point that we cover up corruption with pointless entertainment such as dance trends. Gambino puts them in the forefront and you cannot help but follow them and that means we ignore the chaos and trauma in the background.   One has to actively choose to watch the background in which people jump to their deaths and are being chased by one another. Death even rides past on its white horse with the police not far behind. Gambino is saying that we have to actively choose to want to see the corruption in America instead of ignoring it and being distracted by pointless things. Gambino compares the police to hell by having them follow the white horse. This idea is taken from the bible verse in Revelation chapter 6 and it says ” And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and the name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him…”

The video ends with Gambino being chased by a group of people and he looks fearful for his life. He seems to be embodying an extreme version of the feelings that black people experience almost every day.

Personally I adore the song and I love the video even more. If this doesn’t open the eyes of so many people and shock us into reality then I don’t know what can.

Thanks,

Sope

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