Childish Gambino's 'This Is America' started out as a Drake diss
Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino has revealed that his 2018 smash hit 'This Is America' was initially written as a diss track aimed at Drake.
In a recent interview with GQ, Glover unpacked some of the stories behind his most iconic characters to date, including the process behind his biggest, most viral track.
"Time is the oven that makes something special,” Glover said, explaining how he and renowned composer Ludwig Göransson “did a lot of work” to make 'This Is America' work.
“I had that idea like three years before,” he continued, “and I told Hiro [Murai - a frequent collaborator of Glover’s who directed the song’s iconic visual] the idea [and] he was like, ‘I want to do that.’ He was like, ‘I really want to do that.’ And I was like, ‘Cool.’ And I had the song. I swear to God, the idea for the song started as a joke – to be completely honest, [the line] ‘this is America’, that was all we had.”
Glover went on to reveal that the track "started as a Drake diss," hitting out at the Canadian rapper with the song's hook. “[It] was a funny way of like doing [a Drake diss],” he explained, “but then I was like, ‘This shit sounds kind of hard, though.’ So I was like, ‘Let me play with it.’ So we just had that for a long time, I told Hiro the idea, and he was like, ‘Oh, let’s do it.’”
Childish Gambino concluded by saying his goal with 'This Is America' was to reflect everything going on in 2018. "To me, culture is just compression of information, So I was like, ‘All of it just needs to be compressed into this moment.’ So what was happening needed to feel like it could only be happening right now.”
Watch the full interview below:
