I’ve seen plenty of interpretations of Childish Gambino’s This Is America which dropped alongside his really excellent SNL hosting on 05/05/18. All of them are valid and meaningful, because of course art can be about more than one thing at once. Jim Crow, Charleston, culture as a distraction, guns being more valuable than human lives, the horseman Death, teen culture being taught to film and reblog rather than get involved… the video is rammed full of imagery. It’s powerful, moving and very, very thoughtful.

However, I took something from the video that no one else seems to be mentioning, so I thought I’d blow the dust off to chime in and add one more nuance to the conversation, although there will be people who think it’s not my place to.

I’ve been a Gambino fan since 2011. I had an amateur hip-hop radio show on BURN FM, and I would trawl through the internet for underground stuff to play. I’d get excited, I’d rip it from the highest quality version I could find, and I would censor it myself on Audacity. It took me hours. I remember much of the music very well, including one of Childish Gambino’s first big originals, Freaks and Geeks, named for the cancelled TV show. The first time I saw This Is America, the opening shot reminded me so strongly of the opening shot of that video. I know it’s not a perfect match, but knowing Glover’s love of intertextuality, I couldn’t help but think it was deliberate. I’ve juxtaposed them above.

The lights are up brighter, the shots are framed wider. Glover wants you to see something.

I watched them both a couple of times (okay, okay, I watched Freaks and Geeks once and This Is America a couple of times) and there are some stark changes. I’m not just talking about Donald’s facial hair and ‘fro.

The first thing that is painfully obvious was the language choices Glover uses. In Freaks and Geeks, there are seven uses or references to the n-word*. Four of them are attached to other negative comments. It’s not just here – Gambino’s music has never shied away from the n-word. Glover has a whole stand up bit about it in his hour Weirdo. Never shied away from it, that is, until This Is America. Instead of the reclaimed slur, Gambino’s lyrics sing out “black man”. Twenty-seven times in four minutes, if you include the question-and-answer repeats. It’s a powerful choice, especially when sung by gospel vocals. It feels like a throw back to before the n-word was reclaimed, when it was prevalent for different reasons. It’s reminding you that it can still dehumanise in the mouths of the black community, and shows this by using very plain descriptors. Despite this, the simplicity packs a powerful punch, and “black man” here feels affirmative, humanising and full of camaraderie.

The other massive difference that’s apparent, especially in such similar settings, is the camera work. The entirety of Freaks and Geeks is a single shot, zooming in all the while on Gambino’s uncontainable energy until it ends on a rather intimate extreme close up on his face. It draws you in, it’s a statement: “look over here. I’m over here, doing something cool.”  Despite also being stitched to look like a oner (I count 6, maybe 7 cut points) This Is America is the complete opposite. From the moment Gambino turns to face the screen, the camera is moving out and away, panning wide and taking the viewer on a journey. It’s begging you to look at the background and take in the full picture. Gambino even seems to have to chase the camera down, seeking the attention in an obvious connection to his character in the video. Instead of asking you to focus on him, the camera dares you to look away.

When he first turns around in This Is America, Gambino’s face is contorted. He looks almost like his body’s out of place, and he has to pop’n’lock it back to normal. He looks to me like he’s being squeezed into a tight spot, forced to blurt out his material. The character he plays in the song tries to grab the listener’s attention with boasts of wealth, cars and drugs. It bravados its way through Gucci and violence all while Gambino has a massive grin on his face, dancing freely, revelling in the money he’s making, and the money he invites his fellow black man to “get”. It’s all so easy, say the lyrics. Follow me. The video, of course, belies this and surrounds it with riots and mass shootings, Death and chaos. However, something was seemed clear to me when I re-listened to Freaks and Geeks afterwards.

In its two verses, Freaks and Geeks has nineteen references to the women Gambino is in sexual contact with, eleven references to fashion or how much money Gambino is making, and four references to drugs or alcohol. All other lyrics refer to Gambino’s skill or excellence. There is no other substance. It feels like exactly what This Is America is angry about.

I think there’s a lot of truth to the reading that Childish Gambino’s character in the video is there to distract from the riots and deaths, and to represent them as entertainment. But I think it goes further than that. I see the character as an indictment of the people, the artists, who continue to contribute to those distractions even now. I see anger, yes, but also sadness and regret that he was ever part of that system. It is a challenge from Glover to the hip-hop industry as a whole, to not engage in anything that might contribute to the problem.

Hip-hop has always been about discussing the problems that face the black** communities that create it, but it has been contorted over the years to distract. Most of the pop hip-hop is self-congratulatory, or about love, which is playing to the widest audience. Understandable maybe, but not always helpful. Childish Gambino’s This Is America is not only social commentary, it begs for more social commentary and lays a gauntlet at the feet of other artists, especially in the wake of the week it came out.

Stop caring about the whips and the women, the Hennessy and the Goose. Stop being so Childish, says Gambino.

* Say it like a white kid.

** With a couple of exceptions.