Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” became a huge hit and an internet meme when it dropped in 2018, but don’t count Drake as one of his fans. Drizzy shaded the song at a recent show in Chicago, calling it “overdone and overdone”.
To be clear, Drake didn’t self-criticize This Is America — he let his stage design do it for him. As HipHopDX points out, the newsreel was shown on stage where Drake performed “Headlines,” narrating the message, “The overrated and overrated hit song ‘This Is America’ was originally a Drake record.”
The fact that Childish Gambino’s 2018 song — which famously reflected on systemic racism and the black American experience at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement — was originally intended to be a Drake dis song was actually a headline earlier this year. Donald Glover revealed the song’s less serious origins in an interview with QG‘, explaining that he chose to write a more intense theme after realizing how powerful the song’s music was.
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“I had the idea three years ago,” Glover said. “I told [director] hero [Murai] The idea, and he’s like, “I really want to do that.” The idea for the song started out as a joke. To be completely honest, “This is America” - that was all we had that line. “
Glover continued, “It started off as Drake’s offense, to be honest, as a funny way of doing it. But then I was like, This shit sounds kind of hard. So I was like, let me play with it.”
Watch Drake call out “This Is America” below. The rapper’s “It’s All A Blur Tour” has been continuing with 21 Savage all summer long, and aside from the Childish Gambino beef, fans can also look forward to seeing Drake perform in front of his holographic sperm cells. If this sounds interesting to you, get tickets for an upcoming show here.
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Drake throws shade at Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” after admitting to a different song https://t.co/52WCdDsvQr pic.twitter.com/XayOQF3xj5
—HipHopDX (HipHopDX) July 6, 2023
