This Is America, Honestly.



I needed to talk about this video; I know EVERYWHERE is right now, but I had to join in. This video is one of those that comes around, with sincerity of it's message AND genuine musical genius, once in a handful of years and that of course is Childish Gambino's This Is America.

I have been through so many emotional and logical levels in my mind since listening to this newly released track by multi talented Donald Glover; who I still very much love as Troy from US show Community. On first watch I was excited, loved that the new tunes where trumping the old ones and like many I was thoroughly entertained watching Gambino dance around the warehouse where the video was set. But to say it's more than that is a *swear word coming* FUCKING UNDERSTATEMENT.

I started to notice little things on my own, that the pieces of the actors in the background where bigger than appeared to be, I began to hear the lyrics more clearly and for the first time in a long time, felt like I needed to look more into it; the lyrics, the video, the meaning. What I found was article, after article, with theories and facts of what This Is America was about to them and what they thought Gambino was trying to say; some leaned more towards racism, some towards comments of guns, others saw it as a dig to police. I think, as I do not know 100% as I am not Glover, it's an accumulation of all those things, because they are all issues and Gambino is not someone who shies away from how he feels, be it in his music, his comedy or simply himself. 

I wanted to not sound cliché, but for all it's comments, reflections and use of art for profound poignancy, this is a piece that is very important. It holds violence, bravery, honesty and music; all things that we can banish or use to support the banishment. Music has it's own history of being a peaceful tool to make voices heard and changes thought about and slowly, since many fists and voices are strong within us a civilisation, it's good to know music is on our side and it's high quality stuff.



The main thing I love about this video, is the point, within a point, within a point. The more I watched and researched, the more I saw and soon found out that the entertaining dancing of Donald's was a distraction technique to remind us how we are all distracted and easily so through ignorance, we miss the violence and the riots going on right in front of us. When finding this out, every time I re-watched it I saw something new; it was at least 7 times viewing before I noticed a car on fire and a hooded man riding a white horse, further more I noticed a man jumping from a ledge onto a car; the man was wearing white and stood out but I missed him so many times. 

Furthermore, Gambino's dancing and expressions all had meanings behind them from representations of racist and cartoon artist portrayals of African Americans, to moves that went viral on the internet to help keep our attention small. 

It's all so insane, and sad, and real, and relevant and the song is easily one of Gambino's best; you can all see why, with everything encompassed, journalist's are headlining their pieces with 'Gambino Broke The Internet'.



Images taken from:
http://novavideoz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CHILDISH-GAMBINO-–-THIS-IS-AMERICA-1.jpg
https://onechapteraday.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/childish_gambino_this_is_america-1200x800.jpg



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