It’s been six years since Donald Glover – aka Childish Gambino – released his internet-breaking promo for This is America. Touted as one of the biggest moments in the recent history of music videos, it transported viewers on a whistle-stop tour through the history of racism in America, racking up 915 million YouTube views to date.

The culmination of a long-term collaboration between the musician/actor and director Hiro Murai, This is America also set them up for a move into the film and TV world with FX’s comedy-drama series Atlanta and, more recently, a chaotic reboot of noughties classic Mr and Mrs Smith for Amazon Prime.

With news of the return of Glover’s musical alter ego and the announcement of new album Atavista (essentially a spruced-up version of his under-the-radar pandemic release 3.15.20), comes another Murai-helmed music video for lead track Little Foot Big Foot featuring Young Nudy.

Starring Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunso, the six-minute black and white film opens with Gambino as part of doo wop trio Johnny and the Pipes showing up to a jazz nightclub that nods to the Jim Crow era of racial segregation in the US.

Playing to an unimpressed room, the trio burst into the song’s catchy chorus (which masks the lyrics’ much darker undertones), before things quickly, and somewhat unsurprisingly, take a turn for the worse.

Just as Sherrie Silver’s now iconic choreography for This is America thumbed through African and African American dance history, in Little Foot Big Foot choreographer Shay Latukolan – who has previously worked with Jungle and Rosalía – pays homage to everyone from jazz legend Cab Calloway to Beyoncé in suitably TikTok-baiting fashion.

Credits:
Director: Hiro Murai
Production Company: Doomsday Entertainment
EPs: Danielle Hinde, Jason Cole
Choreographer: Shay Latukolan
ADs: Gavin Macleod, Rick Randell, Joey Neubauer
Editing: Parallax
VFX: Monumental, Square VFX