WHY BRO WHYYY ?? pic.twitter.com/CJ18ix5qSU
— Kristopher London (@IamKrisLondon) May 12, 2018
I generally don’t post on rap music, because it’s outside my skill set, but ‘This Is America’ seems to have expanded the discourse well beyond the usual this-summer’s-top-single effect…
the moral of the story is to use some extravagantly avant-garde time signature for your dance-video-with-a-message, so the internet’s only choice is to meme it w/ like a weird radiohead track https://t.co/eH00A8qEZQ
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) May 13, 2018
I think it's standard time and chord structure is part of the message. "To be a black man in America is to be used for other's entertainment – and your ability to be successful is limited within that framework." It's ability to be meme'd is a feature not a bug.
— Living Without Ego (@livewithoutego) May 13, 2018
It really is an amazing musical and atristic work. (And the visual piece – being a collaboration – just all the more). It's above being cheapened by meme-ing, etc. imo. Attemps to cheapen it just show it to be more applicable.
— Living Without Ego (@livewithoutego) May 13, 2018
What say all y’all?
(This quick video seems to be a useful explanation of some of the symbolism in the original.)
mai naem mobile
I am not into rap music either. I watched it when it was trending on Twitter after he was on SNL. I found it disturbing. I am honestly tired of seeing all these cops and others in power positions doing stuff to black people. WTF? You don’t understand that if you do some racist shit,somebody’s going to be recording you and you’re going to end up on some viral media. Even if you’re a racist POS you should understand that is not good for you.
RSA
I’ve read a few reviews of the piece, including one from HuffPo that was basically “Here’s what random people on Twitter noticed.” This was my favorite, Donald Glover’s ‘This Is America’ Explained by 2 People Who Don’t Pretend to Understand It.
Ruckus
I have no idea what to think or say.
I think I can see the editorial content of it, but I’m not sure that it makes sense to me, given the country we live in.
But then we live in very strange times, people getting shot for really, absolutely no reason other than racism. We fought a war over this and the supposedly decent side won. But that was over 160 yrs ago and racists are once again doing massive damage to their chosen target. So no one won that war, we are still fighting it every day. Only now it’s just the victims of the hate that are dying.
Brickley Paiste
Glover is a genius – before this video and after it.
debbie
I haven’t read any reviews. I’m sure I missed some references, but I thought the video was really impressive.
Omnes Omnibus
I think that it is a world that many Americans live in. I don’t. Nor do people look like me.
ETA: Some to many.
rikyrah
Not too fond of Glover.
I enjoyed the interpretation by Luvvie:
This is America: Donald Glover’s Video is a Gripping Read – https://go.shr.lc/2FO0r9y
Patricia Kayden
The protective treatment of the guns jumps out at me. Now that is definitely America.
oatler.
Same America I saw when Nixon was president. But we didn’t kill them all did we? Too much Orange County dick to suck.
Ruckus
Annie.
Good post. This one at least should leave a mark. Hopefully it will be a positive mark.
As I said I need to think on this, not for the right or wrong but for the message, how it’s delivered. Will it have any positive value or will it just be valuable to the people who are all too cognizant of the reality and taken in exactly the wrong way by the people who need to understand it most?
magurakurin
@Patricia Kayden: the Jim Crow Minstrel show body poses he does are really chilling when you realize what he is doing. The whole thing gets more and more powerful the more you watch it and read about it.
Starfish
@rikyrah: I really love her blog. How does she manage to do those things so quickly with all the pictures and everything?
rikyrah
@Starfish:
I don’t know, but Luvvie is fantastic??
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
I thought so too, and I know absolutely nothing, nichts, nada, about rap.
Brachiator
The director of the video is Hiro Murai, a Japanese filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He has also directed episodes of Atlanta. He and Glover make an amazing team. Murai has given a number of interviews to the NY Times and other publications about the visual influences for the video. Among them is the outstanding Brazilian film, City of God.
An insightful short interview can be found at indiewire, here.
http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/hiro-miurai-this-is-america-director-influences-1201963031/
Mary G
I don’t pretend to understand it all, but I can’t stop watching it. Supposedly the 17 seconds of silence in the middle represent the Parkland victims.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
I’m going to have to do what Luvvie did and watch it a few times. But I like the way she explains it. That’s my take on it, as close as my experience lets me get.
@Omnes Omnibus: has it perfect and is why I’m having a time with this. It’s a sub culture to my world is what I think he is saying. I’m not the people that the guns are aimed at and neither is he. I may end up a victim but it probably won’t be on purpose by the shooter.
rikyrah
Trailer for the New Spike Lee movie about the Black Klansman
Got a six minute standing ovation at Cannes
https://twitter.com/BlacKkKlansman/status/996102896549740544?s=20
Brent
I have been pretty disconnected from the world of pop music for some time now. Maybe decades. I do listen to a lot of hip hop but its almost all underground stuff, so I can say that although I was familiar with some of Glover’s other work, I had never really seen much of what he’s done as a rap artist. That changed immediately after I was made aware of this video.
This video is brilliant. I won’t bore everyone by going into my own long form analysis of everything that I think is going on in it but I will say that just the way he manages the juxtaposition of
1. the various dance sequences
2. the school children
3. the extreme and random violence
is overwhelmingly powerful to me. That’s before you start digging into all the other stuff going on in the background, or the lyrics or the final chase sequence or shifting facial expressions contrasted to the emotional resonance of any particular moment in the video. Its one of the best short pieces of expression of ANY kind that I have seen in a very long time.
Anotherlurker
I loved this video. I will watch it again.
It is very powerful.
I will have to give a re-think to my indifference to Rap .
debbie
@Ruckus:
I read the link. I guess I’m quite wrong. I thought the shooting of the guitar player symbolized “killing” the early bluesmen/music to make way for rap. I clearly need to watch it more and think less.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Thanks for this.
(50-mumble white guy here.)
I’d never heard of Glover before he was on SNL. I fell asleep before his performance of the song there.
I was startled by the video the first time I saw it. I didn’t understand all the references, but it was clearly meant to be disturbing and to have a point of view that needs to be thought and talked about – it’s not just startling and shocking for some cheap thrill value.
This is good, and possibly great, art. Making people stop and think is the purpose of great art. I’m not surprised that an experienced director helped him with it.
It’s very well done.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@debbie:
I didn’t get that at all. There is, as several have stated way too much going on in this to be a simple violent rap video. Read Luvvie and get a take that while a white person can appreciate the video, living it is an entirely different world.
I can appreciate it for what it says. I can understand that it is right and extremely well done but it’s not a rap video, it is spot on commentary on life in 21st century America.
Tenar Arha
I would love to see what he’d do with a whole connected album.
(Also too, if you like visuals & music I will stan forever for both Lemonade & Dirty Computer. Not but seriously Beyoncé and Janelle Monáe are the present day artistic cousins of Michael & Prince. I really think they’re that good & are having that big an influence on everyone else).
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus:
The two things can happen together.
catbirdman
Here’s what stands out to me:
First, IMO the young people in their school uniforms represent the “everyone’s equal, no racism” view of America — you can be an attractive student in a uniform practicing all the latest and best dance moves with a giant smile on your face. IF you happen to be born very lucky AND can ignore everything except your immediate surroundings. If either of those things aren’t true, then you’re one of the tormented others in the background — either because you have no choice or because you can’t pretend everything’s great while you see your community wracked by chaos and violence.
Another thing that seems clear to me is that the 80s K-car aesthetic represents the picked-over scraps that most black people are fighting over. That Sza is perched on one of the cars simply highlights the absurdity of fighting so hard for such pathetic goods. Yes, there will be a very small number of Glovers and Szas, Kanyes and Oprahs enjoying the truly high life — if only to “prove” it’s possible. But the vast majority will be killing each other over K-cars.
The gospel group. I believe Gambino is suggesting that the ubiquitous black gospel singers have become something akin to the minstrels of yore. They bring boundless joy, harmony, and soulfulness to any situation — whether its in church or a car commercial. They have sold their souls, in a way — no longer representing the deep, formidable power of the black church. As they’ve become embedded in the disposable popular culture they’ve become vulnerable and disposable.
Finally, I think the message that’s going to resonate the longest is the “black man get your money” part. This could well be the start of an actual reparations movement. I’ve read about reparations since at least the 80s, when I subscribed to The Nation — surely the idea goes back to slave times. I would not be surprised to see it resurrected, in earnest this time, when the Trump era crashes to an end one day. I think there’s a strong case to be made for it — whether it ever actually happens is (like everything else in this world) beyond my ability to predict.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Do I really have to explain? I’m thinking no, I really, really don’t.
Brickley Paiste
Or it could be a commentary on the immoral materialism as an imperfect response to racist culture.
Mike J
@Anotherlurker:
90% of everything is crap, so you have to look at how great the other 10% can be.
It’s weird that MTV wouldn’t show videos by black people, and look at what the best visual communication set to music has been lately. Lemonade. This is America.
Ruckus
@catbirdman:
I’m not sure about your take on the gospel singers. I live across the street from a black baptist church and the choir and congregation on Sunday sounds like they really mean it. There’s nothing about them that doesn’t say a church that people of all ages come to because they believe in it. Maybe I’m taking what you are saying incorrectly and please tell me if that’s so.
Nelle
@rikyrah: Small brag – my friend co-wrote this with Spike Lee. Our kids grew up together.
dc
@Tenar Arha:
Watch Janelle Monáe’s Pynk video: https://youtu.be/PaYvlVR_BEc
Stevie
The cars featured were ones that I remember from my childhood and adolescence as being both aspirational, something that proved that you’d made it, add in the hands of minorities were called ghetto cruisers.
Just as with expensive athletic shoes , they are proof both of success and bad behavior on the part of minorities.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
I love this video, but not because it makes me happy.
It’s hard to explain, but it abrades away some of the bullshit that has been covering us for years. Definitely very badly needed in this age. It’s honest with it’s metaphor because it’s uncivil to be actually honest in this day and age publicly.
One thing that pops out at me is how the joy and anger and horror and injustice are blended together in the music and the video. The randomness and structure of all of those feelings are shown in the video through careful cinematography, and reflect what we are living in right now. Look at how Trump flails around, yet most of the media and almost all of the republicans just play along to the mostly daily fresh hell that he brings.
Look at today: the US moved it’s embassy to Jerusalem, with approved speakers talking about how it was god’s will for the Nazi’s to gather Jews into Israel, also on the very same day, over 40 peaceful protesters were shot dead and on american news we have talking heads saying they were (somehow without any evidence) fronts for Hamas. THIS massive cognitive dissonance is what he managed to capture.
And that is why the video is so powerful.
Yarrow
I saw the SNL performance first and then the video. The video is incredibly powerful but the SNL performance is also powerful in its own way. The layers in the video are incredible and I’ve had to watch it a few times and see some commentary to understand things I’ve missed.
I first saw Donald Glover in “Community” and loved his character Troy’s friendship with Abed. My favorite part of the show.
ruemara
@Ruckus: It’s inaccurate. Let’s just recall the murders in Mother Emmanuel church, please. It reflects the fact that even in those supposed sacred spaces, black people are not safe.
I must admit that while I am not very into rap, I’ve discovered it’s lyricism & charm. This is a good song. But there’s things within the video that I find viscerally disturbing yet inexplicable. And then I chuckle because much like the black American experience, I guess you have to live it to get it. I’m not surprised at the meme-ing and that strangely well suited “Call Me, Maybe” dub. What else can you do with so much disturbing? You either get crushed by it or you laugh at it.
gene108
I don’t get it. I do t pretend to get it. But I can’t stop watching.
I think the song/rap by itself is meh…
I think it is something that has to be both seen and heard to get the full effect.
catbirdman
@Ruckus: I don’t mean that there aren’t loads of legitimate, powerful gospel choirs in America. But don’t you agree that — for the wider American society outside of black culture — the gospel sound been co-opted over time? I hear it all over the place, and even see choirs in commercial settings (I don’t attend church). Anyway, that’s my interpretation of the gunning down of the gospel choir — I’m sure others have different ideas that may be more legit.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
In that comment I was only talking about the gospel singers not the whole picture. I don’t think they have lost anything. Had it violently taken away, that I’d go with.
What got me at first watch was the shooting. As Luvvie said it’s just callous, like all the other shootings of a black man, but watching it I saw what she described but didn’t have the words, it was choreographed with obvious movements intended to show far more than what was coming next, to shoot an unidentifiable man. It wasn’t meant as senseless violence, it depicted 250 yrs of this country, that it’s OK to shoot something/someone you don’t like, regardless of the reason as long as it’s for racism. And of course it’s not OK. It wasn’t 250 yrs ago and it’s not today.
I worked for nearly 30 yrs, right next door to South Central LA. I’m not blind I saw the racism, my dad’s shop came with a racist shop dog, a huge German Shepard. I didn’t think it was funny when I was 12 and that hasn’t changed. My father didn’t care what you looked like or sounded like, as long as you could do the work he hired you for. And I saw what people got paid, he really was honest about paying people equally for equal talent and effort. That left a mark on me. That he hired Richard, a huge black man to work for him, a man who took a 12 yr old white kid under his wing and showed me humanity. I will forever be indebted to Richard for being a better human being than at least 75% of the rest that I’ve met. But I can’t have the experience. And I can’t laugh at it even as I can understand why you have to. It isn’t funny at all but you have to laugh because otherwise all you can do is cry. And that’s no way to live.
I made a comment here a few years ago that I didn’t think America was ready for a black president. And some of it wasn’t and that’s the part that I was talking about, not the country, the racists weren’t ready. But BenCisco cut me down for that and he was 1000% correct in that the racists will never be ready. But fuck them. Of course that’s easy for me to say, cops aren’t pulling out their guns and shooting me for being white. But Ben said it, this video says it and in a rather moving and provocative way. I was also right in that it isn’t the right time, it way past the right fucking time to fix this. I have no idea how. I don’t hear too many possibilities being put forward. Maybe wider discussions such as this might.
Ruckus
@catbirdman:
OK, thank you.
That’s a different angle than the way I took what you wrote. And I see your point about commercialization. But you can also look at that from the angle that at least it’s not being ignored, it’s being co-opted for wider acceptance. Of course then two things come to mind, that co-opting ruins the concept and is/was it done for appeasement?
ruemara
@Ruckus: I only meant it was inaccurate to say that the chorus was about gospel music. I wish I knew what the solution was other than for a drastic change in the culture. That, I fear, is not on the table.
Mart
Future Son-in-Law is an Ayan Rand “R” Trump voter type. He says he loved Glover on SNL and wants me to agree. I think it is a trap. If I say yes, he is weirdly cool; then the future SIL says ha, you liberal fool, blah de blah all liberals suck, huh, huh. But no, Glover really appeals to him. Maybe I am just too old to understand da yutes.
Mnemosyne
@catbirdman:
I think that ruemara is right and it’s a reference to the murders at Mother Emmanuel church — Luvvie made the same connection, and I think I saw at least one other Black writer do the same.
Mnemosyne
@catbirdman:
Actually, now that I think about it more, I think that the “commercialization” of gospel choirs is part of the message. You can be a “safe” and admired part of African American culture that’s been appropriated for commercials and still be murdered for that very reason. Because that appropration itself made American culture less white and must be punished.
Fair Economist
@Nelle:
How cool!
Ruckus
@ruemara:
Thank you.
Got it.
BTW you might be interested to know that the white cargo van has been gone for 2 yrs. I’m respectable now! Imagine that. Maybe even trustworthy. OK not trying to make you laugh.
Mnemosyne
@Mart:
I think that racists are latching onto this video and claiming that it’s a criticism only of African-American culture, not American culture as a whole Those people are both dumb and racist, and unfortunately your future SIL seems to be one of them.
(It does contain some criticism specifically of African-American culture because — surprise! — African-American culture is part of American culture. But that ain’t the focus of it.)
Amir Khalid
@Mart:
Is it not too late to dissuade your daughter, or does she agree with him on these things?
Ruckus
@ruemara:
That may be the broader point of the video, that it very, very much should be. Because it very, very much needs to be.
But blaming someone/everyone else for your failings is a cornerstone of conservative bullshit and always has been.
catbirdman
@Mnemosyne: You and Ruckus make great points — I’m looking at this as a 53-yo white guy, so it’s going to come across differently to me than to others. I think that’s a positive, that people from different experiences can get something different from the same piece of art, and I will readily admit that my own impression may have nothing to do with what the artist intended. I agree with Ruckus that incorporation of gospel into the wider culture can be a great thing. The problem is when capitalists co-opt this and other powerful aspects of black culture to cash in on them.
Ruckus
@catbirdman:
Hope you aren’t disappointed that both of us are white as well. I’m an old geezer, older than dirt in fact and while Mnems is considerably younger, I think 29 possibly, we share that very similar skin tone.
I think my point is that this is art as a societal editorial, not art for arts sake. That’s what I said above when I said it isn’t a rap video. It’s too well written, too well thought out, too well produced. It has a distinct point that it is trying to make and is very much succeeding. White people can even get the point. Articulating that point is a bit difficult because we don’t have, well, skin in the game. OK we really do but not in the degree and direction that a black person does. Every damn day.
catbirdman
@Ruckus: Lol not disappointed — I try not to assume too much. I get that it’s a pointed commentary on our society from a strong black perspective, but I’d hate to think that means there’s just one “proper” way to interpret it. Given that it’s aimed at the culture at large, I think that each of us is challenged to figure out its meaning *to us* — ideally to discuss our interpretations with each other, as we’re doing here. I’m considering everyone’s point of view with an open and grateful mind — even those of other white guys!
Anne Laurie
@catbirdman:
The joyous noise has always been susceptible to co-optive commercialization — are you old enough to remember when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was all over 1960s television variety shows, especially at Xmas? Well, the Church of Latter-Day Saints started pimping out their choir as a way to demonstrate to non-Mormon America that they weren’t really some bizarre polygamous golden-tablet-worshipping cult.
And they got the idea from the Vatican (really, media-savvy American cardinals) “introducing” the Vienna Boys Choir via Ed Sullivan, to demonstrate that “papists” were not really fifth-column eternal foreigners bent on corrupting the “all American” (Protestant) way of life.
J R in WV
Good art can be really complex and have mAny levels and interpretation all at the same time. I can’t say I really get this very well, there’s more going on than I thought before right now.
Ben Cisco
Brilliant commentary, as is the discussion here.
Which may have been (part of?) the point.
schrodingers_cat
It was hard to watch because of the truth is portrays. That death, destruction and oppression of black people is what America is built on. Even their oppression is played for laughs and entertainment (lynching, minstrel shows etc). Scathing.
catbirdman
@Anne Laurie: I sort of vaguely remember the commercialization of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as a controversy — was really too young. This discussion has me interested in considering how different cultural groups do and don’t monetize their unique talents, and their diversity, within our secular capitalist society — one that has never seriously grappled with the sins of slavery and one that also lacks a strong indigenous culture due to genocide, which has also been glossed over. I remember at age 12 — the morning after I finished watching Roots — feeling overwhelmed by the evilness of slavery and the simultaneous realization that the resulting racial conflicts were deep-seated and would not magically disappear, maybe ever in my lifetime. I honestly think the long-term goal of this video is planting the seed for some form of reparations, and it’s getting kind of difficult to keep dismissing this idea out of hand.
ChrisGrrr
@Brent: yes, yes, yes.
Another fiftysomething (ashamed) white guy here – expected to be impressed, from what I’d read…
But -wow-.
Tears.
Crafted dang near perfectly.
Historical quality and value.
Wow.
Ron
Long time fan of hip hop, not what passes for it today. The video has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the rapping is awful and pretty much a rip off of the Migos terrible track called bad and bougie . People are DESPERATE for hip hop to have the artistry, originality, and social consciousness of what it once had in the late 80s to mid 90s so you get people going over the top for anything that drives within 5 miles of that era.
agorabum
@Ron: “you kids don’t make it like when I was growing up; now get off my lawn” Trenchant analysis. It surely does not compare to the masterful 1989 hit “me so horny” by 2 Live Crew.
Maybe listen to Kendrick Lamar or J Cole (or Chance the Rapper or Run the Jewels)