User:Kevintowles39/sandbox

The video contains many scenes involving violence. It starts off with a shirtless Gambino dancing through a warehouse, interacting with a series of chaotic scenes. According to Murai, the video was inspired by the films Mother! and City of God. Prettyman states "The video tests us, taunting us to keep pace as we try to decode every gesture and calculation". Choreographed by Sherrie Silver, Gambino and his entourage of young dancers perform several viral dance moves including the South African Gwara Gwara and "Shoot" popularized by BlocBoy JB, who is one of the ad-lib contributors on the song. Gambino's dancing is contrasted against moments of violence. Only 53 seconds into the video, Gambino shoots a man in the back of the head with a handgun, while assuming a comical stance similar to a Jim Crow caricature. The first person depicted as being shot in the video, a guitarist who had been accompanying Gambino's singing up to that point, was musician Calvin the Second, but was initially mistaken by many viewers to be the father of 17-year-old gun violence victim Trayvon Martin. This first shooting also marks a transition in the music, from an African "folk-inspired melody" to "dark, pulsing trap".

Further Analysis
Throughout the video, Gambino is "both the purveyor of violence and the subject of terror". Not only is he portraying what it is to be an African-American in the United States, he is showing what it means to be a citizen period. The main reason that this video went viral is because of when it was released and what he chose to portray. The whole video is a resemblance of what was happening in America at the time, hence the title.

Gun Violence/Police Brutality
In 2018, there was a mass shooting almost every week and gun violence was at an all time high. Before that, many blacks were literally murdered on camera by the police and caused uproars. Gambino chose to highlight all of this in the video. After Gambino shoots the first man in the video, the gun can be seen escorted away very securely to ensure the weapon is never found and linked to the murder.Two minutes into the video, An all black choir can be seen dancing and performing in a church. Gambino walks in dancing, pulls out a gun and murders the choir.

Jim Crow
"The earliest public use of "Jim Crow" appears to have been in 1832, when a song and dance by that name, which apparently originated in Cincinnati, was introduced to New York" Many fail to realize that the first dance/pose Gambino does is not something that he made up. It was dance done in blackface by a man named Thomas Dartmouth (T. D.) "Daddy" Rice. It is a highly racist dance and as Gambino does this dance he shoots the unarmed black man. This is again reference to the murdering of blacks by white men in America.

Dancing
As it was previously mentioned, Gambino's dancing and maneuvering of his body are highly prevalent from the beginning to the end of the video. This is to portray how many African-American dances are relevant in pop culture and go viral all time on the internet. The dances he performs are highly confusing to the masses. "Gambino’s styles of dance are recognizable to some, unknown to others;" He makes the connection to the fact that many distracting dances go viral on social media but meanwhile other things are happening that are much more prevalent, such as mass shootings and violence. Sixty seconds into the video you can see Gambino portraying these distracting dances and in the background mayhem can be seen unfolding.