Donald Glover has finally admitted that ‘This Is America’ was originally a diss track to Canadian rapper Drake. ‘This Is America’ was big in 2018 but according to Glover, it was originally a Drake diss track via MTO News;
Donald Glover’s 2018 single “This Is America” is his biggest hit but says the origin of the song is not what everybody thinks.
“I had the idea three years before. I told [director] Hiro [Murai] the idea, and he’s like, ‘I really want to do that.’ The idea for the song started as a joke. To be completely honest, ‘This is America’ — that was all we had was that line,” he told GQ.
“It started as a Drake diss, to be honest, as like a funny way of doing it. But then I was like, this sh-t sounds kind of hard though. So I was like, let me play with it.”
Glover also revealed he failed to make the SNL auditions TWICE…but he’s thankful he did.
“I dodged so many bullets,” Glover said. “Me being on ‘SNL’ would’ve killed me…But if I got on ‘SNL,’ my career wouldn’t have happened,” he said, adding, “And thank God.”
This is America is considered one of the most influential songs and videos of the 21st Century.
“This Is America” debuted at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming the 31st song to do so in the chart’s history. It debuted with 78,000 downloads sold and 65.3 million US streams in the first week. Its music video accounted for 68% of the song’s streaming total. “This Is America” is also Gambino’s first top 10; he previously reached number 12 in August 2017 with “Redbone”. “This Is America” overtook Drake’s “Nice for What” from the top position for two weeks. Gambino is also the second Emmy Award-winning actor to reach number one on the Hot 100, the first being Justin Timberlake, who topped the chart with “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” in 2016. It topped the Hot 100 for two weeks, and left the top ten after five weeks.
