Daniel Glover hosted Saturday Night Live to mostly positive reviews and performed two new Childish Gambino songs. The yet-to-be-named album already has buzz with the SNL performance and video release for This Is America.
Gambino starts playful dancing in a seemingly “normal” music video, then punctuates the songs message by intermittently taking out guns and mowing down the other carefree artists around him. Throughout the video, Gambino seems to be referencing a number of recent flashpoints involving police brutality, white supremacy, and racialized violence: the lynching of Black men; the Charleston shooting; the Black Lives Matter protests.
“I’mma go into this,” he sings, even as he clearly seems fed up with the entire conversation around gun violence, race, and policing in America.
Childish Gambino had me shook once I noticed this stance in his “this is America” video and the lyrics #BlackTwitter. #ThisIsAmerica pic.twitter.com/eeYfBpNzlk
— Mocha_Doll (@NaiyaDuckett) May 7, 2018
“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” -Revelation 6:8 #ThisIsAmerica pic.twitter.com/E0IetLs56Z
— Karen Civil (@KarenCivil) May 7, 2018
This scene reenacts Charleston shooting. Black people praising Lord killed for no reason. Look at the background, you see people running towards the area and “rioting” for change and cops running after them, just b/c it’s their “job”
#ThisIsAmerica pic.twitter.com/sX0KqozbPU
— Kanisha J (@KaniJJackson) May 7, 2018
No one caught the fact that at 2:13, a man jumps to his death. It shows how we don’t care about suicide in America, yet are all in when it’s a dance/trend. This Is America. #thisisamerica @donaldglover pic.twitter.com/OXhFMUjX6V
— iris (@siriouslyyy) May 7, 2018
