The artist has smashed all of his previous YouTube records.
There's a lot to unpack in Childish Gambino's (aka Donald Glover) powerful "This Is America" video, which has been the talk of the Twitterverse since he unleashed the new song and accompanying visual on Saturday night, shortly after he performed on NBC's Saturday Night Live.
In the days since its release, the "This Is America" video has amassed over 50 million views on YouTube, breaking all of Gambino's previous records on the video platform.
For starters, Gambino's new video garnered close to one million views in the first hour and soared to an estimated 12.9 million views in the first 24 hours, a rep from the platform confirmed to Billboard. What's more, the "This Is America" video has become one of this year's biggest music video debuts and was the most-watched video on YouTube from Sunday to Tuesday.
In the four-minute visual, Gambino tackles a myriad of topics that have affected the black community in America, including police brutality, gun violence and mass shootings.
The timely visual comes on the heels of Kanye West's controversial Twitter spree, in which the rapper repeatedly endorsed President Donald Trump and made an ill-advised comment about slavery.
If you haven't already, watch the "This Is America" video, below.
This article originally appeared on Billboard.com.
maddenmcfadden on May 9th, 2018 at 19:11 UTC »
I found the dancing to be hypnotic. I had to watch the video several more times just to catch everything else that was going on.
Shaif_Yurbush on May 9th, 2018 at 18:56 UTC »
Where the hell did the gun come from in the beginning?
juniorspank on May 9th, 2018 at 18:28 UTC »
What a clickbait title this has. Not only does it not match the article, but the "record-breaking" was:
So he broke his own personal record on YouTube.