In a recent interview with GQ Magazine, Childish Gambino says his hit, โThis Is America,โ was originally a Drake diss.ย Gambino decided to take the song more seriously as it developed.ย โI had that idea three years before,โ Glover said of the 2018 record. โThe idea for the song started as a joke, to be completely honest. โThis is America,โ that was all we had โ that line. And 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.โGambino says the song and video came together after studying Michael Jacksonโs โThrillerโ video and Young Thug, who has a writing credit on the song, advised to make a โWe Are The Worldโ type of song for Hip-Hop.ย