Head bagged, hands tied, clothes tattered and worn, the player is now a dingy part of the surrounding grey and off-white industrial space. His gestures quickly turn from a bold display of ferocity and virility, to a juvenile stance as he reaches the seated man, sans guitar. See his gold: adorning the Black chest it stands out, two chains. See his hair: a nappy, worn, and handsome growth of African descended heredity. His dance is a movement retracing the camera’s path from the guitarist. The choral spirituals with the tribal melody complementing his verse during this scene follows steadily in the wake of his most recent album, “Awaken, My Love,” an album evoking Afro-futurism.
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He spins, eyes off in the lower distance as he jerks, rolls and flexes in classic Black form, full of the weirdness and flavor of an aged granddad showin’ ya how it’s done, and all the grandeur of a proud tribal dancer performing for the Negus. The camera passes the guitarist, and Gambino comes into full view, popping to the beat. Toeing that fine field of focus, the barefoot guitarist enters, stage left, pacing a calm beeline to the guitar and taking a seat to play.Ī slight contrast is noted between the strength and beauty of the player, with the worn out guitar. Uplifting soulful vocals and rhythms juxtapose a dingy, industrial space, as the camera moves in from the foreground toward a lone chair focused in a narrow depth of field in the middle ground, acoustic guitar atop, and Gambino barely visible as a sliver of a Black body between a white-painted girder and a white-painted pipe in the background. Its prima facie is a meticulous display of perspective and symbolism. From the black opening frame with its white lettered, cursive title, to the final chase scene, we are shown the major components of America brought to bear, as viewed by Gambino, and by the Black America for/to whom he speaks, are concerns of place and importance, beauty and ugliness, joy and violence, and other dichotomous pillars of the Black experience.
Most issues of sufficient meaning and importance to Black Americans begin and end in manichean form, and Gambino’s latest, “this is America,” is a prime example.
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