Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ Is a Lesson on Gun Violence

Childish Gambino’s latest video depicts Donald Glover like we’ve never seen him before.

Signaled after his Saturday Night Live hosting gig last night (May 5), the 34-year-old rapper’s first earworm in two years — a politically-charged anthem titled “This Is America” — turns the media’s obsession with black culture on its head with a searing address on gun violence and racism still ravaging generations of black Americans today.

At first, Glover appears happy and cheerful in the Hiro Murai-directed visualization, dancing shirtless inside an empty building structure. Strings and choir chants maintain the song’s lighthearted, upbeat atmosphere but this joy is a temporary distraction that caveats something more sinister.

Bino turns a gun from out of the blue and executes a man at point-blank range. All at once, the singer carries on jigging with a group of uniformed teens as if the slaughter never happened; it won’t be the last time, either.

Crafted by Doomsday with Ibra Ake and Fam Rothstein of Wolf + Rothstein, the visual also shows a quick cameo by R&B songbird SZA, who arrives in the aftermath of the massacre that sends him on the run.

It is paralyzing imagery, to say the least, but sends a message clear as day: this is a reality.

Watch the music video for “This Is America” up top.