Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ started off as a Drake diss song
nme.comChildish Gambino (aka Donald Glover) has opened up about the origins of his 2018 smash-hit ‘This Is America’ revealing that it was initially written as a diss song aimed at Drake.In a new interview with GQ, Glover sat down in an orange grove to unpack the stories behind some of his most iconic characters.
In addition to the story behind his actual origins in music – which involved “love at first sight” with renowned composer Ludwig Göransson, who worked on Community and every one of Glover’s records as Childish Gambino – the multi-hyphenate talked through the hectic process he went through to make his biggest hit.“Time is the oven that makes something special,” Glover said, noting that he and Göransson “did a lot of work” to make the track 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 equally iconic music video] 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 song “started as a Drake diss”, implying that the central lyric was originally a jab at the fellow rapper’s stomping grounds in Canada.
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