In May, Childish Gambino made waves with his controversial single This Is America. Now, some people are pointing out apparent similarities between the track and rapper Jase Harley's 2016 song American Pharaoh. Harley said he is happy to have potentially served as inspiration for the record, but noted that "a shout out would be cool." [Twitter]
The beat, the flow sounds incredibly similar. It is hard to deny the similarity between the two but the highly thought provoking song could it be a copy?
Childish Gambino Collaborator Denies “This Is America” Plagiarism Allegations
One of Donald Glover’s creative partners has denied claims that Glover “stole” the music for his No. 1 single “This Is America” from a March 2016 song called “American Pharaoh” by New York rapper Jase Harley. Fam Rothstein is a co-principal of the creative agency Wolf + Rothstein (which is comprised of himself, Donald Glover, and Wolf Taylor), and he also co-produced the music video for “This Is America.”
This morning, in response to a user who claimed that Glover “stole the song,” Rothstein tweeted: “The internet is a place of no consequences. I hate that Toronto Akademiks/every white blogger can say something as gospel and y’all take it. This song is 3 yrs old, and we have Pro Tools files to prove it.” Find his tweet below. [pitchfork]