How Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” Crowned Billboard Hot 100

On May 6th, Childish Gambino released the stunning visuals for his latest single “This Is America”, which the artist debuted just hours before during his Saturday Night Live performance. Since, “This Is America” has accrued over 70 million streams, while the video has logged over 180 million views.

Though radio-play of “This Is America” was at first slow going, the track is now on the ascent to the top 30 songs experiencing R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay. Concurrently, “This Is America” continues to crown the Billboard Hot 100 as well as their On-Demand Streaming chart. This is the first time since 2003 that 4/5 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 belong to the R&B genre, with Childish sitting at No. 1, Drake at No. 2 & 3, and Post Malone feat. Ty Dolla $ign at No. 4.

“This Is America” wasn’t exactly a shoe-in for this type of viral streaming. The trap afrobeat banger is most vividly understood when paired with its daring, evocative, and oft-jarring Hiro Murai directed music video. So it’s no shock that a big reason “This Is America” hit No. 1 last week was that video. In its first week, the “This Is America” clip was watched about 85 million times on YouTube. According to Billboard, of the millions of streams (audio and video) that pushed the song to No. 1, views of the “America” video made up more than two-thirds.

What is it about Gambino’s “This Is America” music video that is so captivating, addicting, and unsettling, all at once? Personally, I have viewed “This Is America” nearly thirty times now. Within the first week, I seized every conversation and directed it to Childish Gambino and his politically inspired art, forcing all of my loved ones to witness the same thing I had.

And even though not everyone could formulate an opinion, a like or dislike for “This Is America”, everyone I watched digest the track and video was stunned into silence or modest remarks. And more often than not, I was asked to replay “This Is America”, for things misunderstood, or missed altogether. Here is a breakdown of what I believe is going on in Childish Gambino’s “This Is America”, a song which will be discussed and canonized in the political arts for years to come.

1. The Choreography: Sherrie Silver, a Rwandan-born dancer, creative, and philanthropist, is the mind behind the movement in “This Is America”. According to Silver, Glover’s team wanted the dancing children to be the “light” of the video. “You know how kids are innocent and kind of unaware of what’s going on? We were there to smile and bring joy to everyone watching it, because the background is bringing so much darkness and reality,” Silver said to Pigeons and Planes. 

But in providing “light” to the video, Glover is simultaneously acknowledging our culture’s need for brevity in order to handle a darker reality. He is challenging viewers to look beyond the light, though it may be perfectly executed and highly entertaining. Glover fully dedicated his body to Silver’s choreography, as evidenced by the shining product. But in his face is an unmistakable sadness and anxiety. Glover knows his body—and many other black bodies—are caught in the industry of entertainment and peddled as distractions, instead of bringing fans closer to truth.

2. The Message: Most everyone who watches and listens to ‘This Is America” knows that the song, at its core, is a reverberation of gun violence and its desensitizing effect on society. But I would like to point out a few absolutisms of Glover’s “This Is America” music video, those symbols which are irrefutable when discussing the ethics of this world.

0:52; Today’s gun violence and its normalization in African-American communities began in–and continues to echo–the Jim Crow South. 0:56; America’s refusal to value human life above gun rights, with the careful handling of a pistol and the crude disposal of a dead body. 1:56; Gambino guns down a joyous church choir, referencing the horrific 2015 Charleston shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal. 2:15; A bound man falls to his death to zero consequence while the dancers continue to distract viewers, and themselves, from the carnage. 2:36; “Death” rides in on a pale horse, alluding to Revelations, while Gambino stands firmly planted in the middle of a dance circle.

3. The Guests: According to Childish Gambino’s creative director Ibra Ake, the ad-libs in “This Is America” were inspired by the 1985 collaborative song “We Are the World”. “The idea was just a ‘We Are The World’ song, I guess,” Ake says. “You know, there’s a bunch of rappers featured, but he just kind of wanted to make a ‘We Are The World’ song with rappers. And really not them rapping, just their ad-libs. Just kind of reducing the features to jazz.”

So far, the confirmed ad-libs present in Gambino’s “This Is America” include Young Thug, 21 Savage, Quavo, Slim Jxmmi, and BlocBoy JB. But a few fans have speculated more artists, and even broke down their appearances by the second.

#ThisIsAmerica Ad-libs I heard

0:36/2:01/3:01/3:42 – Young Thug
1:08 – Kendrick
1:20/1:36/2:42 – BlocBoy
1:21 – Big Sean
1:26 – Rick Ross
1:39/2:20/2:32 – 21 Savage
1:40 – Lil pump
2:06 – Slim Jxmmi
2:14 – Offset
2:25/2:30/2:44 – Quavo
3:08 – Aminé

— Chocolate Metaphor (@_mikepearson) May 7, 2018

Not too long after dropping “This Is America”, Childish Gambino announced a few more Summer tour dates with Rae Sremmurd. And because “This Is America” continues to crown the Billboard Hot 100, we think it’s safe to assume that those tickets are going to go fast, especially since Glover has made it clear we are nearing the end of his Childish Gambino saga. Scroll down for our full inventory of cheap Childish Gambino tickets!