Childish Gambino claims ‘This Is America’ was originally a Drake diss track
His 2018 hit was first created as a joke before he decided that “this shit sounds kind of hard though”
Childish Gambino - real name Donald Glover - has revealed that his 2018 hit ‘This Is America’ was planned to be a diss track aimed at Drake.
Speaking in an interview with GQ, Glover revealed the process behind making one of his best-known tracks ‘This Is America’ with renowned composer Ludwig Göransson.
Coming up with the idea three years prior Glover says: “I told [director] Hiro [Murai] the idea, and he’s like, ‘I really want to do that.’
Read this next: Donald Glover reveals he has not retired Childish Gambino
“The idea for the song started as a joke,” he says.
“To be completely honest, ‘This is America’ [the lyric] - that was all we had was that line. It started as a Drake diss, to be honest, as like a funny way of doing it. But then I was like, this shit sounds kind of hard though. So I was like, let me play with it.”
“Time is the oven that makes something special,” Glover said, adding that is was “love at first sight” with Göransson who “did a lot of work” on the track.
Glover went on to imply that this lyric was first made as a dig to Drake as a Canadian artist however he explains: “Then I was like, ‘This shit sounds kind of hard, though.’ So I was like, ‘Let me play with it.’”
Read this next: Lollapalooza offers refunds to festivalgoers after Drake is replaced by Skrillex for Brazil headline set****
The viral dance within the music video of ‘This Is America’ is explained by the artist to be inspired by Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ as he “studied” the iconic dance “for a long time”.
He continues in the interview to reveal that the overall style of the music video was “deliberate” and that the choreography “needed to feel like a moment. I feel like the Internet kind of robs moments.”
Last month, Glover won a lawsuit filed against the track by Kidd West for copyright infringement, claiming that there was a strong similarity between ‘This is America’ and his track ‘Made in America’.
Check out the music video to Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America’ here.
Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Video and Editorial Assistant, follow her on Twitter