Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” Lyrics Explained | Genius News

Childish Gambino's new single "This is America" has taken Genius by storm, becoming the fastest song to reach one million pageviews in the history of the site. The songpage traffic has been driven by the track's symbolism-heavy lyrics and accompanying music video, with visitors looking to decode the messages Gambino weaved into the song.

Read more on Genius: https://genius.com/a/three-annotations-that-help-decode-the-symbolism-of-childish-gambino-s-this-is-america

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Jacques: To fully grasp Childish
Gambino's "This Is America,"

you have to watch the music
video more than once.

And in searching for symbolism,
you might miss a major part - the lyrics.

Gambino's opening upbeat bars
dramatically shift to a darker tone

and catch
the listener off guard.

When you juxtapose these lyrics with the video
featuring him dancing with a group of kids

amidst anarchy or handing off his weapons
carefully after he's just shot someone,

it seems like he's targeting racism
and America's gun problem at the same time.

The verse's "celly" and "tool"
mentions may be a nod to Stephon Clark,

who was killed by
Sacramento police in 2018.

Lester Holt: And we are now
getting our first look at that shooting.

Police apparently thinking he was holding
a gun, now say it was a cellphone.

Jacques: In addition to referencing Florida
rapper Kodak Black, 'kodak' could also note how

some kids are filming the dancing
on their cell phone cameras.

This may symbolize the commodification
of stereotypical black culture,

which Gambino's later
bars seem to allude to.

Gambino's dance moves, choreographed
by Sherrie Silver, seem to be an intentional

distraction from the violence he is committing
and the madness around him.

As The New Yorker's
Doreen St. Felix put it,

This is what it's like... to be black
in America - at any given time,

vulnerable to joy
or to destruction.

And as we're focused on his dancing,
Gambino pulls the rug out from under us.

Gambino's words paired with his violence
in the video illustrate the uncomfortable

part of being black in America, where
you can be arrested or killed at any moment.

Glover's creative director told WYNC that
they sought to contextualize the black experience.

Ibra Ake: This is how we would like
to dance but we have to be aware of the danger

and the politics of
how we're perceived

and the implications of the history
of how we were treated.

Jacques: As the video ends we see
Childish running down a dark hallway

which could be evoking
Jordan Peele's 'Get Out.'

It could also be a nod to the relationship
between black art and suffering

and how sometimes
our creative representation

can be twisted into stereotypes
that can be used against us.

Donald Glover: I just wanted to make,
you know, a good song and, like,

something that people
could play on Fourth of July.

Jacques: We all live in one America - but exist
in different spaces of the red, white and blue.

Donald discussed his aim
to depict this on his show 'Atlanta,'

during an interview with
the New Yorker, saying quote,

I don't even want [white people]
laughing if they're laughing

at the caged animal
in the zoo…

I want them to really experience racism,
to really feel what it's like to be black in America.

I'm Jacques Morel with Genius News, bringing
you the meaning and the knowledge behind the music.

Peace!