This is America by Chidish Gambino: analysis of the lyrics and the video

This is America is a music by North American rapper Childish Gambino released in May 2018. The theory of social criticism, two serious verses, turns on a theme contemporary anti-racism, reflecting on the way the United States treats its black population.

Or video, directed by Japanese Hiro Murai, caused a huge international controversy, reaching 85 thousand views in a week. Embora may seem bizarre at first glance, or the video narrates various racial discrimination that traverses the history of the country.

Music and video This is America by Childish Gambino

Analysis and translation of the lyrics

Com This is America, Childish Gambino faz um intelligent and provocative social and political commentary about the way blacks live in treaties in the United States.

Frequently reduced to stereotypes of violence or mere diversion (music, dance) in white society, their oppression and racial discrimination are off, placed in the background.

A questão e explored more deeply no video directed by Hiro Murai, embora in its own letter leads to these reflections. Isso fica bem evident logo our first verses, quando o cantor sums up the limited and preconceived vision that survives about two North American blacks.

First stanza

We just want to party
Festa only for you
We hardly want money
Dinheiro only for you

Here lies a strong criticism of North American culture and the world of rap. Gambino It expounds and ironizes the image of a futile and alienated black youth who is protected by rap songs in pop culture. As very own music produced by black artists of successso many times we reach the tops exactly for feeding this limited image that entertains and entertains the brand culture.

Refrão

This is America
I do not feel like it is correcting
Olhe or what are you doing?

Assim, or refrão clarifies that we are under a representation of North-American system that reduced black individuals to exoticism or entertainment, ignoring such lutas e as discriminations that são alvo do seculums.

Legally, I will tell you all the same, Childish warns that a black homem cannot "correct". You need to be always attentive, you cannot hesitate for a second while you live in a racist society.

Second stanza

Sim, this is America
Weapons na minha area
Eu peguei na bandoleira
Eu tenho que carregá-la
Sim, sim, vou enter nisso
Sim, sim, isso é guerrilha

This stanza, or speech by Gambino is quite close to the fact that it is not common for North American rap, narrating the way that this little black guy makes police officers uncomfortable and the conflicts they find in the streets.

I expose to violence two social contexts from where these narratives arise, Fala gives his reality as a guerrilla where he needs to be armed to defend himself and survive.

Pré-refrão

Go tell someone
Vovo me disse
Paste seu dinheiro, homem black

Nesta passagem, or little subject reproduced here that he escutou to his entire life: "hit seu dinheiro, homem negro". This lição, transmitted from geração em geração, continues latent in American society. In practice, this seems to mean that in order to live calmly and be respected, a black individual fears that he or she will succeed in financial stability.

Ou seja, the United States survives The idea that a black person needs economic power to be treated as a citizen deserving two serious directives..

Third stanza

I'm ready
Gucci Estou
This is so pretty
Eu vou get
See how I get along

Nessa linha de pensamento, or little subject exhibits his expensive clothes, his cell phone, his imported car as foreign symbols of wealth that confirm his succession.

I do not want more to prove your value through the ostentation of your conquests, Show the branca society that it is achieving all the goals that it has set for the most, it does not want to stop for there.

Fourth verse

America, eu chequei minha follower list e
Go tell someone
You are selling me, filhos da whore
Vovo me disse
Paste seu dinheiro, homem black

A fourth stanza continues the present idea in the previous verses, clarifying that or little guy is not satisfied just with dinheiro and fame. Going to or his country and showing or his success, he misses that Ainda is amused with the, like seu povo.

Fifth verse

You are just a black home in this world
You are just a barcode
You are just a black home in this world
Running imported luxury cars
Você é barely um cão grande, sim
I turned on the no quintal
No, probably, no life for a puppy
For a big puppy

In the final stanza, Gambino takes on the voice of a brand-name, conservative, racist society, and herdeira of signs of crime and racial discrimination. He addresses someone, himself, the public, all blacks, I repeat here that the world forever lhe falou: "você é só um homem negro nesse mundo".

It will last longer, saying that it is limited to a "barcode", something to earn and spend, to consume and feed a capitalist society. Show that to American culture always wants to teach you that you can ambition and direct an imported car, show off wealth as a form of validation.

The last verses, however, show that the same as a black individual ganhe dinheiro na America, Same as a "big puppy", his life will continue to be devalued by society. racist.

Assim, he compares the blacks that are fetishized peel off white culture to imprisoned puppies not quintal, showing that they deserve more, that it is urgent to fight for something better.

Video analysis and explanation

Partindo da message expressa na music, or video of This is America é um set of references to racial discrimination in the United States. Constructed in an apparently simple way, it is full of hidden symbols that the viewer needs to decipher.

Perhaps with his enigmatic character, he has been the object of attention and enthusiasm from the international public, who seek to understand more deeply the message passed by Childish Gambino.

Uncle Ruckus (The Boondocks)

Logo começo do video, something that causes strangeness together with the public and Gambino's position, as well as expressing it is not his face, like two olhos esbugalhados. It is about a reference to Uncle Ruckus, personagem of the histories in quadrinhos and of the series of animation The Boondocks.

Ruckus, or main antagonist of entanglement, is um homem velho that embora seja black, odeia and despises all his culture of him. He chega, at times, to deny his identity to him, claiming that he had a doença that changed to cor da his fight.

With just an image, Gambino face uma Black years satire that reproduces the racial preconceptions And they turn against their own racial and cultural heredity, obsessed by a white culture that despises you.

Jim Crow (racist vaudeville personagem)

Outra quite iconic dinner and that was launching a muita discussão that one in which Gambino shoots on a hooded homem. Exactly this moment, to music past the African rhythm for a beat of trap, contemporary style patterned with excessive violence.

A bizarre position and an absurd rapper at the moment of the shot and coincidence. It is a reference to Jim Crow, personagem of vaudeville raised by Thomas D. Rice em 1832. O cantor e ator, with a face painted in preta ink (using blackface) reproduced the preconceptions of the time, ridiculing the blacks.

The impact of the personagem was so great that "Jim Crow" became a Pejorative way of referring to a black homem. Também deu nome a um set of state leis that institutionalized racial segregation between 1876 and 1965, as Jim Crow Leis.

By reproducing the ridiculous body postures as Jim Crow was portrayed, it shows that these dinners of glorification of violence are another way to deny the image of two black individuals. This type of representation is also reduced to an offensive stereotype.

A figure of this perigious, violent black home, is presented as a current way of diminishing black North Americans, of keeping or racial preconception alive.

Charleston Massacre

In the presence of a chorus of young Afro-descendants who are dead by hair, rapper is a clear allusion to the Charleston massacre. Or crime of ódio chocou or country em 2015, when nove jovens foram assassinados na sua Igreja Episcopal by Dylann Roof, motivated by ignorance and racial preconceptions.

Before dying, the chorus sang "Oh, I'm going to shoot at somebody", illustrating the way black men are always received with mistrust and faced like a permanent ameaça.

Stephon Clark's Assassination

Tracing a route against various forms of racial assault and discrimination in the History of the United States, Gambino does not leave for recent events. Contrary hair, face questão to be attentive to what is happening in the Lord.

Also, in several dinners of violence happening in the background, we see young people filming the episodes as a cell phone. The lyrics of the music also refer to "isso é um cell, não uma ferramenta", lembrando or the case of Stephon Clark.

In March 2018, o 22-year-old black youth who was assassinated by a police officer who mistook his cell phone as a weapon. Or case, um de muitos, chamou to public attention for as racial discrimination that continues to be implicit in the law, which assumes that a black homem and immediately guilty of any crime.

Cavalo branco e cavaleiro do Apocalipse

A symbology do homem mounted do not dig it white refer to or biblical text, wave or cavaleiro do apocalipse What do you ride or animal is uma representation of death and victory through violence.

A message, then, of revolution, of destruction of two old paradigms and of discrimination, see in what way. Gambino chama seus irmãos for a luta and announces a chegada de um novo tempo.

Meaning of music and video This is America

As many analyzes have been made, the message of This is America is not released into music or video. The non-public ecoa: the interpretation and the reaction of quem assiste is also a way of telling this story, of responding to everything that Gambino transmits to burn and assists.

For many, or meaning not clear at the start. It is necessary to pay attention to us details, the tracks that are being left in the background. Enquanto or olhar do public is fixed to us dancers, not rhythm and joy, distracted with noise and agitation, do not notice what is happening simultaneously.

Behind the imagem past pela medio, which reduced black culture to entertainment and fun, All forms of violence that the black community suffers are being hidden and minimized us United States.

A message, so what? to me, distance is true, We were distracted by the fact that it really matters and not what attention should be focused on. The same society that consumes the mass of Afro-American cultural products, ignores and perpetuates racial discrimination.

Gambino wanted to break the limits that a branca society built for him. Com This is America affirms that I am not going to oil racism disguised as praise, or hidden preconception in admiration and segregation that, in one way or another, continues to guide your country.

Original lyrics gives music

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
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)
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
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)
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
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)
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 in Oaxaca (woah)
They gonna find you like blocka (blaow)
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, three, 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
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

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• Music Believe, by Cher
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• Film Laranja Mecânica, by Stanley Kubrick
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