33 years before Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” Kurtis Blow released this track on an album of the same name. While the hook may give the impression of sappy patriotism, the interspersed quotes and accompanying video reveal a deeper meaning. In reality, Kurtis Blow was attempting to expose America’s long legacy of contradictions and deviations from its ideals of democracy and peace. Unfortunately, the song itself was a dud and the album’s only charting track was the widely sampled “If I Ruled The World.”