Behind The Record Special Edition: "This Is America" Two Years Later
- DM, Executive and Editor
- Jun 19, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 8, 2020
On May 5, 2018, Childish Gambino released his Grammy Award® winning sing titled "This is America". The song was his first release since 2016's "Awaken My Love". The controversial song has since become an anthem for movements such as Black Lives Matter. The song peaked at number 1 giving Glover his first and currently his only number 1. Do to the climate surrounding the United States right now we here at Behind the Record thought it would only be appropriate to talk about the deeper meaning of the song and find out how this song has effected the entire world.
The song had a monumental start debuting at number one on the Billboard Hot 100™. "This is America" can be compared to Donald Glover's 2016 hit "Redbone". Like the Funk track, the theme of the song is centered around the African American community. Both songs tackle problems like equality and political awareness. "Redbone" focuses more on being politicaly woke while "This is America" calls out all of the oppression that African Americans have to endure. The song spent 17 weeks on the chart but has had a greater impact on the world after it left the charts. At the 61st Grammy Awards, "This is America" became the first rap song to win "Song Of The Year". The single also won three other awards at the Grammys including "Music Video of the year", "Best Rap/Sung Performance", and the prestigious "Record of the year" award, beating out other big names like Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Post Malone, and Cardi B.
Now that we have some background information on the song, its time to dive into the lyrics, the meaning, and the quality. The song opens with a gospel choir singing a sweet intro under Glover singing about the contrasts between what makes up America. The song quickly progresses to a much more aggressive beat where we find Childish Gambino warning that the racist killings of African Americans have done everything but disappeared, and that they should still be careful. This is similar to the lyrics of Redbone
"So stay woke, (explicit) creeping, they gon' find you, gon' catch you sleeping".
The song continues to bounce in and out of the soul driven style while Donald Glover raps. The song also tackles gun violence against African Americans.
I've interpretive the song by itself to the best of my ability, but to truly understand the meaning of the song, we need to look at the music video. The incredible one shot style video manages to raise the attention of so much in less than 5 minutes. The video starts calmly with the Glover walking toward a man in a chair with a bag over his head. However it takes a turn when Glover shoots the man in a pose that has been compared to old caricature of an African American during the extremely racially bias "Jim Crow" laws. As the beat drops, Glover moves toward the gospel choir that was featured in the song, and after a few seconds of them singing, he shoots them as well. As Donald moves, he dances again making the comparison between things that make up American (in this case gun violence and partying). At this point, everyone in the building is running ramped starting fires and beating up cars. Police cars can be seen with police chasing the people in the background. About 3 quarters of the way through the song, everything stops, and Childish Gambino is left standing in the middle alone, lighting a joint. As he walks away, the music starts again and as Glover steps onto of a car the man who was shot hat the beginning of the video can be seen playing the same guitar. We then cut to Donald running as people chase him in the background.
The song has been used a lot recently as more and more footage of police brutality arises, and the song fits what is trying to be accomplised. If we look at the big picture, yes, so much has been accomplished, but we there is a lot more to fix. It's because of people like Childish Gambino that use their platform to do good that change can come. And althought Childish Gambino may have released his final album (time will only tell), the impact his music has had will always be remebered for what it accomplished.
Thanks for reading this weeks special edition of Behind The Record, if you have a song or album you think we should cover, email us at unknownskullrecords@gmail.com or DM us on Instagram! Make sure you come back often to see what’s new in the world of music. Stay tuned for next week's, "This Month In Songs"
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