The Brief: The music video for Childish Gambino's "Feels Like Summer" features a celebrity-filled cartoon landscape over a chill, smooth musical track.
DEEP DIVE
Although it was released at the end of summer, Childish Gambino‘s latest music video “Feels Like Summer” captures an essence of summer slowness and heat.
You can feel it in the streets
On a day like this, the heat
It feel like summer
Following established trends of collaborations between rappers and cartoonists and animated music videos, the animated video was drawn by artist Justin Richburg. It is celebration of black excellence and of black everyday life.
In the video, a character resembling Donald Glover walks through a neighborhood under the summer sun, wearing ripped clothes. On his walk, he passes cartoon versions of 59 musicians, actors, and celebrities, most of whom are black. Beyonce, Chance the Rapper, Oprah, Jay-Z, Migos, Michael Jackson, and many others make appearances as cartoons in the video.
The video seems to poke fun at some celebrities, showing Travis Scott and Nicki Minaj fighting over blocks (a reference to their beef over who has the top album) and, somewhat controversially, Kanye West crying in a MAGA hat, while Michelle Obama hugs him.
