Donald Glover, AKA Childish Gambino, Weathers Allegations Of “This Is America” Plagiarism

Donald Glover has been having a hugely successful year, from starring in Solo: A Star Wars Story to releasing the acclaimed track “This Is America” under his rap altar ego Childish Gambino. We all know that Solo is based on the earlier work of others, but is that is also true in the case of “This Is America”?

Following Glover’s BET Awards performance of “This Is America” with Jamie Foxx on Sunday night, allegations of plagiarism started blowing up that noted major similarities between the Gambino track and New Jersey rapper Jase Harley’s 2016 song “American Pharaoh.”

The accusation really started to take hold in a Reddit thread on the r/hiphopheads subreddit, and then the controversy got louder as it migrated over to Twitter when the music pundit known as Big Business referenced the supposed plagiarism:

The two tracks do have a similar structure, flow, and subject matter, but nothing has yet definitely settled the question of whether this is mere coincidence or actual theft.

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Fam Rothstein, a member of Glover’s management team, came to his client’s defense on Monday, tweeting (in a since-deleted post), “This song is 3 yrs old, and we have pro tools files to prove it.”

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Harley addressed the controversy himself on Instagram, noting that he also noticed the similarities but that he wants the focus to remain on the issues and injustices that he and Glover are both calling attention to.

Glover, meanwhile, has yet to release any official public response to the allegations.