New York — Rapper Childish Gambino’s shocking video, which questions American society about its relationship to racism, guns, violence and consumption, surpassed the 100 million view mark on Sunday, just over seven days after the its publication.
Only four music videos have reached this symbolic bar in less time: Gentleman by South Korean singer Psy (3 days), Look what you made me do by Taylor Swift (3 days), Hello from Adele (4 days) e Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus (6).
Shot in a gigantic hangar, the video of This is America (Here is America) has become a social phenomenon, endlessly commented on social networks.
With its cryptic texts and multiple references, the 4-minute message film is subject to a thousand interpretations by Internet users who try to decode its smallest details.
The video stages Donald Glover, real name of Childish Gambino, who connects the sometimes joyful, sometimes violent tables with a messy rhythm, with a permanent underlying tension.
In particular, we see him executing a hooded, handcuffed and seated man with a bullet in the back of the head, and subsequently knocking down the ten members of a gospel choir with a burst of Kalashnikovs.
In an interview with Fox channel reporter Chris Van Vliet during the promotion of the film Solo: A Star Wars Storyin which he plays Lando Calrissian, Donald Glover refused to decipher the content of his video.
“I think it’s not my role to do that,” explained in an interview posted online Friday, this multimedia creator who is at the same time rapper, musician, actor, screenwriter and producer. “I don’t want to give any context. »
“We’re not as cerebral as people think,” Ibra Ake, one of the producers of the video, said in an interview with public radio NPR. The team “know the feeling they want to give back”, but without always knowing how to explain it, he said.
Internet users have seen in the film a denunciation of armed violence, others a criticism of the American penal system and police abuses, or a satire on the hyper-consumption of American society, but also historical references to slavery, segregation and racism.
“Our goal is to normalize being black,” Ibra Ake summed up.
