The lyrics and accompanying music video, reflecting the core of the Black Lives Matter movement, confront issues of ongoing systemic racism, including prejudice, racial violence, the ghetto, and law enforcement in the United States, as well as the wider issues of mass shootings and gun violence in the United States.

Everyone's favorite Canadian rapper was originally meant to be the subject of Childish Gambino's Grammy Award-winning single “This is America.” In a recent interview with GQ, Donald Glover revealed that the song first began as a Drake diss track, built around the song's beat and simple hook, “This is America.”

The white horse. Some viewers interpret the appearance of a rider on a white horse as a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the Bible's Book of Revelation, the horsemen represent the evils that come at the end of the world. The white horse appears behind Glover as he dances with schoolchildren.