Donald Glover’s Childish Gambino struck the country like an earthquake earlier this year when he released the metaphor-laden, deeply layered video for “This is America.” Both the song and its video wrestled with issues such as systematic racism, financial inequality and the prevalence of gun violence.
Dropped in May, that video welcomed the warmer months. Over Labor Day weekend, the rapper dropped another new video to conclude this hot and humid season, fittingly for a song titled “Feels Like Summer.”
The video — co-directed by Glover, Ivan Dixon and Greg Sharp, and illustrated by Justin Richburg — is nearly the diametrical opposite to “This is America.” For one thing, it’s animated. It also isn’t as overtly political, even though the lyrics of “Feels Like Summer” reference climate change, water shortage and colony collapse disorder. Just consider the second verse:
Every day gets hotter than the one before
Running out of water, it’s about to go down
Go down
Air that kill the bees that we depend upon
Birds were made for singing
Waking up to no sound
No sound
The video, though, doesn’t spend much time on politics. Instead, it’s filled with famous rappers just chilling as a character who appears to be Gambino strolls down a city street, listening to his headphones.