Childish Gambino: debate sparking music video "This is America" review

(photo via screenshot from Youtube music video by Childish Gambino)

Donald Glover, aka Childish Ganbino, is an Emmy, Writer's Guild and Grammy award winning artist. This weekend he released a new track, titled "This is America", for his final studio album.

This track has invoked much debate and controversy, but first, I'd like to touch a little bit on the description of what takes place in the video.

The video opens when a middle aged black man playing a acoustic guitar lick, with Gambino's back turned to the camera. As the beat kicks it, Gambino starts to move to the music and turns around. As he does, he says "We just wanna party, party just for you, we want the money, money just for you..." As he is still singing, he walks up to the man playing guitar, now with a bag over his head, and shoots him. After he shoots him, a man walks up and grabs the gun from Gambino ever so carefully with a cloth and runs away. 

As he is walking away from the man that was shot, Gambino says "This is America, don't catch you slippin' up" and begins to dance. Two men drag away the man that was shot and riots start to pop up in the background. Gambino then begins to dance. He is then joined by a group of kids doing the same dance moves he is doing as he echoes the lyrics previously mentioned. 

The next scene shows a black church choir singing "Oooo get your money, black man. Get your money, black man". Gambino then walks in through a side door and dances up to the camera as the church choir continues. All of a sudden, someone hands Gambino an AR-15 and he shoots the choir. Much like the first shooting, the gun is taken away from him carefully with a cloth and the character runs away. Gambino then walks away from that scene as more rioting begins in the background behind him. 

Cut to the next scene, Gambino is dancing again, saying the phrase "This is America" as he is joined my more kids, performing dance moves. He then begins to speak about how he has Gucci and he is so pretty. Rioting continues. A cloaked man riding on a pale horse rides by in the background. The dancing continues until Gambino puts his hands in the air in the form of a gun, without a gun in his hand, and everyone runs away and the music stops. 

He then pulls out a joint, walks up to an 80's car, begins to dance on the hood of it with the lyrics being sung "Ooo, you gonna tell somebody, you gon' tell somebody". The final scene is of Gambino running away from a mob of people, with fear in his eyes, and the video cuts to black. 

Here is what I believe the video is about:

This video touches on a multitude of topics. First, the media. On two separate instances, Gambino shoots people. Each scene is roughly two seconds. Once it happens, that event is glossed over and now the focus is on his dance moves. I feel like it is a critique of how the media not only portrays gun violence, but how it moves on to what they think will inspire viewership or "clicks" on a webpage. Check out these new dance moves! Guess who is dating who! What rapper has beef with another rapper? All topics you will most likely see headlining a webpage that is supposed to accurately show the news, but would rather focus on trivial, frivolous topics rather than the deaths of citizens. 

The next topic is gun violence, in general. In both shootings, as I stated before, the guns that were used for the shootings in the video were handled with delicacy after Gambino used them. I feel like this is used to describe how many in America view guns. The phrase "Guns don't kill people. People kill people!" is thrown around ad nauseam. Gambino uses the video to show that to a certain extent, many care more for the guns, rather than the folks that have been murdered. Handle with care taken to a whole new meaning! While I do have a particular stance on gun control, that is not part of this write-up, so I will not delve into that. However, I do find his use in the video quite interesting. 

The last topic I will discuss is the point in which Gambino holds his hand up like a gun, but doesn't have one in his hands. Everyone ran away at that point. I fully believe that is a representation of how many black Americans have been shot, whilst not holding a weapon, by cops. Police brutality and police shootings have become quite an epidemic in America, and have sparked numerous riots and groups to form, as shown in the music video. While I do believe many Police Officers do a good job protecting us, it is hard to ignore the bad seeds that are out there and are protected by the police unions. True reform, teaching and introspection needs to occur in that particular area, and I do not believe enough has been done. And I feel that is exactly what Childish Gambino was trying to touch on. 

Overall, I think this was a brilliant video made by a brilliant artist. We have seen his genius in previous albums, on his television show that he wrote and created "Atlanta" as well as numerous sketch comedy projects he did in years past. As his music career winds down, I feel like he is making a statement that needs to be heard. America, you are killing yourself and killing others. Look at yourself and see what is wrong. The only way to become a better person and a better country is to look at it from afar and see how messed up particular aspects are. I love America but things need to change. And that change starts with each person. 

If you are looking for the music video "This is America" by Childish Gambino, it can be found by visiting Youtube. Thanks for reading and I hope to hear you guys' opinions on this groundbreaking video. 

@jgullinese