Childish Gambino recently admitted his 2018 hit “This Is America” was supposed to be a Drake diss. However, this may come as a shock to many who weren’t aware of their beef. This is how it began.
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On April 4, Donald Glover, also known as rapper Childish Gambino, admitted in an interview with GQ that his award-winning track, “This Is America,” was supposed to be a diss towards rap superstar Drake. Gambino clarified It ultimately started as a joke.
“It started as a Drake diss, to be honest,” Gambino said. “as like a funny way of doing it,” “But then I was like, this s*it sounds kind of hard though. So I was like, let me play with it.”
In fact, Gambino said the original idea for “This Is America” was brought up in 2015 but only had one line for the song at the time. All he had was the simple line, “This Is America,” which makes sense since Drake is from Canada.
The song ultimately ended up not being a diss towards anyone in particular, but instead, Gambino used the concept to show America’s negative side.
The theme of the video for “This Is America” was highly political, and the imagery included gun violence, racism, and police brutality. The video saw rises in viewership during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and after the death of George Floyd.
The song eventually won “Record Of The Year” and “Song Of The Year” at the 2019 Grammys. Gambino also won a lawsuit against an artist who said he stole the song’s concept.
To many, it’s ironic and unusual that Gambino ever had an alleged “beef” with Drake, as many don’t remember. However, the “3005” rapper originally called out Drake in 2014, and other rappers such as Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q, in a freestyle while performing in Sydney, Australia. Which is right around the time Gambino began writing the diss record.
“I’m the best rapper, definitely top-five,” Gambino rapped in the freestyle. “I cut their head off, that’s every rapper living, that’s Kendrick, that’s Drake, that’s Schoolboy, that’s everyone.”
Though Gambino attempted to start a feud with Drake in 2014, the “God’s Plan” rapper did not respond. In fact, shortly after Drizzy got into his beef with Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill in 2015 and traded diss songs with him, rather than Gambino.
The reason behind Gambino calling out rappers on the stage in 2014 still remains a mystery. Though the incident did happen at a heated time in the rap game. In 2013, less than a year before the call out, Kendrick Lamar shook up the rap game with his controversial verse on Big Sean’s 2013 song “Control.”
In the verse, Lamar competitively dissed rappers such as Pusha T, Drake, Meek Mill, A$AP Rocky, Tyler The Creator, Mac Miller, and others.
It’s possible that a subliminal diss could’ve been conducted to Gambino considering Drake has a reputation for “sub-dissing” in his lyrics. On his album in 2022, Her Loss with Atlanta rap star 21 Savage, Drake dissed several artists including Megan Thee Stallion, D.R.A.M, Kanye West, along with former ex-girlfriend Serena Williams and her husband.
If Drake ever dissed Glover, nobody has yet to pick up on it.
In the same GQ interview, Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino revealed that Barack Obama’s daughter, Malia Obama will make her debut as a director. It will be produced by Donald Glover’s production company, Gilga.
