THIS IS AMERICA CHILDISH GAMBINO - LYRICS
[Intro: Choir]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go away
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go away
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go away
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go away
[Bridge: Childish Gambino & Young Thug]
We just wanna party
Party just for you
We just want the money
Money just for you
I know you wanna party
Party just for me
Girl, you got me dancin’ (yeah, girl, you got me dancin’)
Dance and shake the frame
We just wanna party (yeah)
Party just for you (yeah)
We just want the money (yeah)
Money just for you (you)
I know you wanna party (yeah)
Party just for me (yeah)
Girl, you got me dancin’ (yeah, girl, you got me dancin’)
Dance and shake the frame (you)
[Chorus: Childish Gambino]
This is America
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Look what I’m whippin’ up
This is America (woo)
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Don’t catch you slippin’ up
Look what I’m whippin’ up
[Verse 1: Childish Gambino, Blocboy JB, Slim Jxmmi, Young Thug, & 21 Savage]
This is America (skrrt, skrrt, woo)
Don’t catch you slippin’ up (ayy)
Look at how I’m livin’ now
Police be trippin’ now (woo)
Yeah, this is America (woo, ayy)
Guns in my area (word, my area)
I got the strap (ayy, ayy)
I gotta carry ’em
Yeah, yeah, I’ma go into this (ugh)
Yeah, yeah, this is guerilla (woo)
Yeah, yeah, I’ma go get the bag
Yeah, yeah, or I’ma get the pad
Yeah, yeah, I’m so cold like yeah (yeah)
I’m so dope like yeah (woo)
We gon’ blow like yeah (straight up, uh)
[Refrain: Choir & Childish Gambino]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
You go tell somebody
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (get your money)
Get your money, Black man (get your money)
Get your money, Black man (get your, Black man)
Get your money, Black man (get your, Black man)
Black man
[Chorus: Childish Gambino, Slim Jxmmi, & Young Thug]
This is America (woo, ayy)
Don’t catch you slippin’ up (woo, woo, don’t catch you slippin’, now)
Don’t catch you slippin’ up (ayy, woah)
Look what I’m whippin’ up (Slime!)
This is America (yeah, yeah)
Don’t catch you slippin’ up (woah, ayy)
Don’t catch you slippin’ up (ayy, woo)
Look what I’m whippin’ up (ayy)
[Verse 2: Childish Gambino, Quavo, Young Thug, & 21 Savage]
Look how I’m geekin’ out (hey)
I’m so fitted (I’m so fitted, woo)
I’m on Gucci (I’m on Gucci)
I’m so pretty (yeah, yeah)
I’m gon’ get it (ayy, I’m gon’ get it)
Watch me move (blaow)
This a celly (ha)
That’s a tool (yeah)
On my Kodak (woo, Black)
Ooh, know that (yeah, know that, hold on)
Get it (get it, get it)
Ooh, work it (21)
Hunnid bands, hunnid bands, hunnid bands (hunnid bands)
Contraband, contraband, contraband (contraband)
I got the plug on Oaxaca (woah)
They gonna find you that blocka (blaow)
[Refrain: Choir, Childish Gambino, & Young Thug]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
America, I just checked my following list and
You go tell somebody
You mothafuckas owe me
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
Get your money, Black man (get your, Black man)
Get your money, Black man (get your, Black man)
Black man
One, two, get down
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
You go tell somebody
Grandma told me, “Get your money”
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
Black man
[Outro: Young Thug]
You just a Black man in this world
You just a barcode, ayy
You just a Black man in this world
Drivin’ expensive foreigns, ayy
You just a big dawg, yeah
I kenneled him in the backyard
No probably ain’t life to a dog
For a big dog
An Expert's Take on the Symbolism in Childish Gambino’s Viral ‘This Is America’ Video, By MAHITA GAJANAN, May 7, 2018, Time.
Donald Glover released a new song and music video “This Is America” under his musical moniker Childish Gambino on Saturday Night Live this weekend — and the four-minute, single-take music video is laden with metaphors about race and gun violence in America.
The “This Is America” video, which has already racked up more than 20 million views on YouTube, reveals provocative imagery of the rapper as he guns down a choir at one point and dances while violence breaks out all around him. Childish Gambino/Glover‘s decision to wear just a pair of gray pants without a shirt in the video, allows viewers to identify with “his humanness,” as he raps about the violent contradictions that come with being black in America, says Guthrie Ramsey, a professor of music history at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The central message is about guns and violence in America and the fact that we deal with them and consume them as part of entertainment on one hand, and on the other hand, is a part of our national conversation,” Ramsey tells TIME. “You’re not supposed to feel as if this is the standard fare opulence of the music industry. It’s about a counter-narrative and it really leaves you with chills.”
Here’s Ramsay’s take on four key moments from “This Is America.”
The opening moments of “This Is America” show a man strumming a guitar alone to choral sounds. Within the first minute, Gambino shoots the man, who has been tied up with a head cover. Childish Gambino hands the gun to another man, who safely wraps it in a red cloth as the obscured man is dragged away. The moment goes right into the first rapped chorus: “This is America / Don’t catch you slippin’ up.”
Ramsay says the timing — that this happens during the song’s move from choral tones to a trap sound — allows Gambino to straddle contradictions and also allows the viewer to identify with his humanness.
“He’s talking about the contradictions of trying to get money, the idea of being a black man in America,” Ramsey says. “It comes out of two different sound worlds. Part of the brilliance of the presentation is that you go from this happy major mode of choral singing that we associate with South African choral singing, and then after the first gunshot it moves right into the trap sound.”
The early moment shows, too, that Gambino “could be anyone,” according to Ramsey. “You have him almost unadorned, as if he were totally without all the accoutrements of stardom,” he says, noting that Gambino dances in neutral colored pants, dark skin and with textured hair. “It’s just him, and therefore, it could be us.”
Gambino and a group of kids clad in school uniforms dance throughout much of the “This Is America” video, smiling through impeccable moves as violence erupts behind them. The moment could be open to numerous interpretations — for example, Ramsey says, the dancers could be there to distract viewers in the same way black art is used to distract people from real problems plaguing America. But, Ramsey says, it’s better to absorb the video as a whole because America itself is a country of “very strange juxtapositions.”
“Even though we think of popular culture a a space where we escape, he’s forcing us to understand that there’s actually nowhere to run,” he says. “We have to deal with the cultural violence that we have created and continue to sustain.”
The style of dancing by Gambino in the video also calls out the way we consume culture. Gambino samples at least 10 popular dance moves derived from hip hop and African moves, including the South African Gwara Gwara dance, according to Forbes. Ramsey says the use of so many famous dance moves show how ultra-popular pieces of culture lose their specificity over time as they become more ubiquitous.
“It’s really a commentary on how much violence and contradictions there are in the consuming of pop culture, particularly in the violent elements of it,” he says. “With all the conspicuous consumption that global capitalism inspires, part of what we are consuming is this appetite for violence.”
Toward the middle of the video, a choir sings enthusiastically in a happy tone before Gambino shoots them all. The massacre and its quickness recall the 2015 Charleston shooting in which white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine black people in a church basement, Ramsey says. The image and what it evokes shows how people struggle to reconcile with and separate different instances of violence, according to Ramsey. As we consume violence on all sorts of platforms, be it in the news, through music videos or television shows, it becomes difficult to absorb very real instances of mass murders.
“You can’t escape the violence,” Ramsey says. “But you’re being forced to separate how you feel about it in our digitized world. The virtual violence, the real violence, it’s all confused.”
The final moments of the video show Gambino running, terrified, down a long dark hallway away from a group of people as Young Thug sings “You just a Black man in this world / You just a barcode, ayy.” Gambino’s sprint goes back to a long tradition of black Americans having to run to save their lives, according to Ramsey, who says one song dating back to slavery in the 19th century was called “Run N— Run.”
“A black person running for his or her life has just been a part of American culture dating back to slavery,” he says.
Text Natty Kasambala May 7, 2018
After a jam-packed night hosting and performing on SNL with new material, Donald Glover dropped a spectacular and timely new visual, as Childish Gambino, for his return track “This is America” on Saturday night.
In the video, we witness a slightly unhinged Gambino tackle the latest dance crazes as children dance and scatter around him in a chaotic parking lot that is no doubt meant to symbolise the nation of America. During the course of the video, we follow Gambino from space to space as he shoots a masked guitarist, mows down a church choir with a machine gun, and dances hard in between, before lighting up a joint and climbing onto a car for the final scenes. The video ends chillingly, with Gambino subsequently being chased through the dark. The final shot shows the fear flicker in his eyes as he strides to outrun the violent mob.
Directed by Glover’s longtime collaborator and Atlanta director Hiro Murai, there is so much to unpack in the visual beyond Gambino’s own erratic and brilliant performance. Arguably, the focus of the video is to illustrate just how easily we are distracted from the abhorrent truths of our society, when presented with the spectacle of pop culture through dance moves and viral content, just as Gambino’s dance moves distract us from the chaos constantly unfolding behind him. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most powerful elements of the video.
The most immediate feature of the video is the gun. By displaying the violence of the weapon so openly in the first scene, we are thrown into a state of shock from the get go – but the commentary goes further than that. Every time Childish executes someone with the weapon, a child rushes in to collect the firearm and carefully place it into a cloth before removing it from the scene. Conversely, when Childish Gambino shoots the first victim, the body is dragged from the scene as he walks on unstirred, while the church choir are left as a pile of bodies in disarray. Here, the disconnect between the care with which the gun is treated, in direct contrast with the blatant disregard for human life is both jarring and palpable; impossible to look away from. This is America.