“This is America”
May 24, 2018
This song is as straightforward as any artist can be. Donald Glover is entering into the Pop Culture once again, through his rap ego, Childish Gambino after releasing a psychedelic funk and R&B album, Awaken, My Love! back on December 2, 2016. Donald writes this track with his good friend, Ludwig Göransson, a successful swedish composer who is known for composing movie scores and television soundtracks. The track has 21 Savage, Blocboy JB, Slim Jxmmi of Rae Sremmurd, Quavo of Migos doing ad-libs throughout the track, as well as, Young Thug doing ad-libs and backup vocals.
The song is mostly concluded by the general public that the song is a commentary of black lives in America. The intro opens up with choir harmonizing, helping bring the connotations of black history through music and art. The choir are singing with a couple of kicks for 4 measures and slowly gets built upon from there.
Here begins the bridge, where Gambino starts singing with a few overlays of his vocals to give a reverb to it along with a guitar being played fingerstyle. Young Thug also joins in with the ad-libs. Halfway through the bridge, the rhythm gets picked up more by the snares and toms that are joining with the kick. Gambino is singing regular traditional club song lyrics about girls stripping. Donald, in the bridge, is trying to make it known that there’s a lot of women that are trying to sell themselves to get ahead these days. The bridge lasts about 8 measures until an abrupt and aggressive beat switch pops into play.
The beat change initiates the chorus. The baseline is now present with a dark, intoxicating and wobbly 808 sub-bass. The 808’s are hitting aggressively joined with sharp hitting snare rolls. To keep a steady pace, congos can be heard discreetly but is still loud enough to notice. Childish, then, comes in with the unforgettable lines “This is America, Don’t catch you slippin’ now, Don’t catch you slippin’ now, Look what I’m whippin now.” Glover is shoving the facts in your face whether you like it or not when listening to this. He insists to try not to mess up at all in America or there is going to be repercussions. The last line, “Look what I’m whippin now,” can be interpreted in different ways. Some say it’s the slang is meant to be about a car. Some say it’s in the terms making something, specifically crack. But, in any case, everybody agrees that Gambino is presenting the idea of negligence of political issues. The chorus runs for about 8 measures.
The first two lines of the first verse is the same as the chorus but he begins to rap afterwards. The beat is still same attention-grabbing beat as the chorus. The noticeable difference at first is that now everybody joins in for the ad-libs. The 2nd bar stated is an extremely explicit reference to police brutality, “Look how I’m living’ now, Police be trippin’ now (woo).” In the 3rd and 4th bar Childish changes direction to gun glorification which is in contrast of self-protection, “Yeah, This is America (woo, aye), Guns in my area (word, my area), I got the strap (aye, aye), I gotta carry ‘em.” This marks the halfway point of the verse which ques an erie high-pitch ringing sound to the beat. In the 5th bar, Gambino declares Guerilla Warfare, “Yeah, Yeah, I’ma go into this (ugh), Yeah, Yeah, This is Guerilla (woo).” In the 7th bar, Gambino goes back into materialism, “Yeah, Yeah, I’m so cold like yeah (yeah), I’m so dope like yeah (woo).” The “Cold” line is in reference to jewelry. In this aggressive verse, Gambino rapped for a good 16 measures.
After an aggressive verse, we wind down to the Refrain. The refrain is exactly the same as the bridge instrumentally. Lyrically, the Donald is now in roll of the ad-libs while the choir has taken over. The choir is now chanting for the black man to get his money, “Get your money, Black man (Black man), Get your money, Black man (Black man).”