Donald Glover has said his 2018 Childish Gambino single “This Is America” started out as a Drake diss track.
“The idea for the song started as a joke,” Glover told GQ. "To be completely honest, ‘This is America’ — that was all we had, was that line. It started as a Drake diss, to be honest, as like a funny way of doing it. But then I was like, this s**t sounds kind of hard though. So I was like, let me play with it.”
“This Is America” ended up being a commentary on police brutality and earned Gambino his first No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart as well as four Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
Glover’s alter ego fuelled a feud with Drake in 2014 when he said he was a better rapper than Drake, Kendrick Lamar and ScHoolboy Q combined. He later said it was all part of his act.