Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ And Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright’ See Massive Spotify Gains Amid George Floyd Protests

As protesters gather across the United States to demand justice for George Floyd, the unarmed black man killed by Derek Chauvin last week, listeners are revisiting songs that express the black experience in America. 

Two songs in particular—Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”—rocketed up the U.S. Spotify chart on Tuesday (June 2). “This Is America” leapt to No. 2 (up from No. 97 on Monday) and amassed 1.117 million stateside streams, while “Alright” made its return to the chart at No. 11 with 752,836 U.S. streams.

Both songs take starkly different approaches to the trials and tribulations of being black in America. Musically, “This Is America” alternates between cheery, singsong melodies and hard, menacing trap beats, as Gambino sings about the commodification of black culture and the epidemic of gun violence in America. The music video offers a similar juxtaposition, as Gambino goes from singing and dancing alongside a black choir to gunning them down with an automatic rifle and advancing toward the camera with a dead-eyed stare. “This Is America” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and propelled Donald Glover from a musical auteur to a prophet who distilled the fury and pain of millions into one blistering, four-minute song.

“Alright,” by comparison, is far more optimistic. Lamar details various personal demons and the struggles of the black community at large—poverty, addiction, violence, police brutality—but clings to hope in the face of adversity. The song became a rallying call at Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the summer of 2015, and at the time, many writers argued that “Alright” had succeeded J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as the new Black National Anthem. In 2019, Pitchfork named “Alright” the best song of the 2010s. 

“This Is America” and “Alright” also made big splashes on the global Spotify chart yesterday, peaking at Nos. 7 and 26, respectively. Both songs appear on Spotify’s Black Lives Matter playlist, which has nearly half a million likes. Several other songs from the playlist debuted on Spotify’s Top 200 U.S. chart yesterday, including James Brown’s “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud,” The Game’s “Don’t Shoot,” 2Pac’s “Keep Ya Head Up” and Killer Mike’s “Don’t Die.” 

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