Childish Gambino Drops New Music Video to His Single "This is America"
By: Abina George
The music industry hasn’t heard from Donald Glover since his 2016 release of “Awaken, My Love!” Childish Gambino, as he is known within the music world, has remained quiet without a hint of new music. Yet, his time spent during this hiatus was dedicated to the cultivation of the single “This is America.”
Whilst the country decries scenes depicted in much of hip-hop as obsessed with the sexualization of women and the promotion of extreme party life, Glover has delivered a scathing critique of society in a mesmerizing video.
The music video opens with a man in white pants and light beige shirt walking towards a chair centered in the middle of an empty warehouse. As he picks up the guitar laying in the chair and takes a seat, the camera pans slightly to the background where Childish Gambino stands facing away from his audience. “We just want to party. Party just for you.”
He begins to dance. Glover’s moves are controlled and calculated. He dances with complete focus on his movements and glides over to the guitarist, now devoid of guitar and head covered like a hostage, pulls a pistol from the back of his trousers, poses, aims, and shoots the seated man.
His actions move from beautiful to grotesque while his shooting pose is highly reminiscent of the “Jim Crow” figure of earlier American advertisements. Childish Gambino’s dancing is only an act to sate viewers and distract from the atrocities the occur. A group of adolescent dancers then moves behind him, joining Glover in the execution of dances. While the group entertains with their coordinated routine, chaos erupts in the background.
The scene cuts to a shot of a choir praising. Childish Gambino enters through a door dancing his way in front of the choir. He is tossed a gun from off camera and guns down the singers, echoing the violent church massacres that have plagued the United States in recent years and placing the gruesome capability of automatic weapons on display all at once. He bounces away as weapon wielding protesters and a police car blur behind him.
Childish Gambino - “This is America” Music Video
The guns in the video are always carefully and respectfully handled after each shooting. They are laid gently on red cloth and carried safely away. These tools treated with more care than any of the people. Glover gives such care and effort to his movements, a testament to how he tries to please the audience among all the homicide and violence behind them. He sings “I’m so pretty” shortly after someone falls presumably to their death in the background.
Children mingle on the rafters above all the turmoil, observing the destruction and videotaping all the transgressions of their elders prepared to follow the path of those that came before them.
As Gambino and the accompanying school children perform the latest dance crazes, the white horse of the apocalypse gallops in the distance behind them provoking conclusions of the antichrist descending upon the nation and producing war. The scene ends with the children running and Glover resting in a position resembling firing a handgun. He pulls out a joint, self-medicating from the horrors he is experiencing and continues as society expects of him.
Donald Glover climbs onto a car with a hooded figure in the foreground and begins to dance again. “Get your money Black man.” he sings, and the camera pans out, insinuating that we are still expected to perform despite the horrors and abuse that engulf society. Keep performing and get your money. Ignore the atrocities that unfold before you.
The video concludes with Donald Glover and other African Americans running from a wrathful stampede. His eyes are engorged as he exerts himself for fear of his life. The fear and terror madden him, and he races for his life. This is America.
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