Ah, what a time to be alive.
Childish Gambino just released two new singles this past Saturday and the internet went wild, as they should.
Donald Glover, also known as his alter ego Childish Gambino, is back and better than ever. Glover hosted and was a musical guest this past Saturday on “Saturday Night Live” where he performed his two new singles.
It feels like just yesterday when I saw him perform live alongside Erykah Badu at the famous Greek Theater in Berkeley. His music was much simpler and curated less of a buzz.
“This is America” debuted on SNL and immediately after the mastermind Gambino dropped the music video to accompany the song right after the performance.
The music video has over 40 million views since its Saturday debut and has the internet buzzing with countless memes and conspiracy theories surrounding the song and music video.
The satirical piece shows Gambino and frequent collaborator, Hiro Murai, trying to portray the blindness individuals are facing in America.
Gambino’s erratic facial expression and his manic dance moves makes one stare in awe, but leaves us blind to what is really going in the background: a living hell.
The video opens with Gambino holding a gun, immediately shooting a man covered with a bag as he raps directly staring at the camera, “This is America.” Symbolism at its finest. Gambino is clearly trying to imitate the conditions we live in a country with little to no gun-control.
As the video comes to an end, we see Gambino spark a joint and show off his dance moves on a car. We think he’s going to end it like this, right? No. We later then see Gambino running into an abyss with a crowd people following. Are they running away from the violence or are they running to something?
Gambino’s creative mind has us spiraling with assumptions of what the music video can mean throughout the duration of it, but in reality, the video is set to be a wake-up call for those blinded by social media antics (cough,
cough, Kanye) and worthless news coverage. Gambino wants us to see that America is struggling.
Glover is a Grammy-award winning artist, TV star and has an overall dense portfolio than anyone else on this planet. His creative juices have birthed a countless amount of renowned work and have made him the talk of this generation.
With a special cameos by R&B queen SZA and vocals from Atlanta native Young Thug, the song and music video will go down in history as an iconic moment in pop culture.
