 What's up everybody, once again, it's Brain Man Sean and we got to talk about Donald Glover. Shout out to Gambino, but really this is a bigger conversation related to it, but first I got to pay my own bills because this video is brought to you by BrainManNetwork.com because I signed myself. So Donald Glover, what are we talking about? Well, this is America. Everybody pretty much knows this is America, not everybody, but a lot of folks. That video blew up. It was huge, probably one of his most acclaimed works yet, considering all of the awards that he got. I'm not going to name them all. I'll just throw a picture up of a list of these awards, but he got VMAs, Grammys, all kinds of things for this is America. But there are some things to question about the video. I know there was a lot of uproar before about the song actually being stolen potentially, but nobody really talked about the idea of the video being stolen. So I'm going to start here. You know what else you don't get credit for? What you see is what you get in our video. That video was amazing. I have seen that video remade so many different times. Donald Glover recently did it with This Is America, but I never see how much paid to you. Does that bother you a little bit? It does not. Okay. You know, because the truth is the truth. And this video is not to convince people that Donald Glover stole that this is America concept. I'm going to hold my opinion to the end. However, there's a lot of things that people who really care about art should actually consider. And I'm just going to present those points so you can decide for yourself how you think about it at the end. I would love to know people's opinion, because if we look at these videos, there's a few things that are similar. I'm just going to touch on a few. The style of shooting, right? You have this one take, but not really one take, and it's constantly being chopped up. And then you have all this idea of chaos being depicted of the world behind this taking place, but then they're not really a part of the chaos. But then at some moments, they actually do join the backdrop itself. Donald Glover. He's dancing with the people at times exhibit. He'll actually perform at a concert at times in the video. And in one way or another, there are some larger statements that can be drawn from the images that get shown in the background. And for anybody who really cares about artwork and wants a deep perspective on how it should be looked at, I think should consider this perspective. There's an author by the name of Austin Cleon. He wrote a book called Still Like an Artist. Ultimately, his theory is that all artists still in one way or another. And a lot of that theory really just alludes to the fact that there's so much great area. So for a perfect example, here's a clip of Austin Cleon talking about a random idea he kind of came up with just in his own boredom. And this is what I did. I picked up my marker that I used for drawing, and I started making boxes around words that popped out at me. And I started connecting those words into little phrases and funny sayings. And when I was done, I blacked out all the words I didn't need. And this is what it looks like. It looks like as if the CIA did haiku. And I really wasn't sure what I was doing. All I knew was that it felt really good to watch some of those words disappear under that marker line. So what I did was I started posting them to my blog and I called them newspaper blackout poems. And slowly over time, they spread around the internet and I collected them in my first book, Newspaper Blackout. Now, the reason that that's so important is because he actually took that idea and expanded it to the point where he actually did an entire book of those poems and that style blacked out, right? And he called it Newspaper Blackout. I meant to say Newspaper Blackout Blackout is a different thing. And interestingly enough, he actually related it to an FBI file where they show redactions and they started black things out and end up kind of looking similar. So he thought he didn't steal it from the FBI or get the idea from the FBI. I was kind of random with that's where he started to relate it to and maybe continue to be inspired by it from there. But interestingly enough, beyond that, people start calling do the light. People started saying that he was stealing a concept. It was not a new concept because there was a guy named Tom Phillips who in 1937 had already been doing this idea with books. He would black out books. We can create these concepts, images, et cetera, et cetera. Long story short, once he found out about this Tom Phillips guy who he had no idea about, although people were accusing him for stealing from Tom Phillips. The truth is he started to take that in research and found out that it went all the way back 250 years. So even Tom Phillips wasn't the original guy to do some version of that. There was a dude named Caleb Whitford who died in 1810, who did something like this during his lifetime. So before we get back to Donald Glover, I have a question for you. Have you ever come up with a business idea and then found out it already exists? And if you decided to continue with that idea, did you steal the idea from the other people or not? And I asked that question because it seems to be that there's two camps in a lot of these situations. There are situations where people are truly inspired by something, but there are legitimately situations where people are completely ignorant of that other thing. And maybe they were inspired by something, but it was actually completely unrelated to that other thing that people are accusing people of stealing from. But now back to Donald Glover. Of course, a lot of people did also accuse him of stealing that song. Y'all can go look at that and check that out if y'all want to. But I want to look at some of the things that are different between exhibits. What you see is what you get video and Donald Glover's This is America. Number one exhibits video was in his neighborhood and it was all around exhibit more so and the video, particularly if you're listening to the song, because it kind of really is a boastful type of song. And when you look at the neighborhood behind him in the video, it's more so looking like this is a day in his life and all the crazy things that go around me. And what you see is what you get comes off as a statement of, look, this is just what it is. And this is how it looks in this side of America. Donald Glover comes off as, hey, I'm talking about this entire country and I'm making a statement about the entire country. This isn't depicting just one part of lifestyle. I'm telling you all of these things that are messed up about the country. And I'm showing you things that you normally don't see in a way that will make you think about it differently. There's actually a lot of shock value to it as well. So our exhibit does have some dope lyrics. It's nowhere near as deep as that this is America lyrics, because that can be analyzed in literal social study classes or something. Another thing is, and what you see is what you get. There were general events that were happening, right? You know, a police raid, you know, drugies or shootouts. Like all these things were happening around exhibit, but Donald Glover used a lot of symbolism and a lot of things represented specific events, not only just the outfits, but the choir, the shooting of the choir, kids and the dancing. There were a lot of very specific things to be drawn from that, which leads to one of my final thoughts, which is, you know, what you see is what you get is telling a story actually from a video standpoint, the way the exhibit starts, but sitting in his living room on the couch goes to the store to get something and then comes back is telling the story. It's a very linear story, although this wild stuff is going on behind them. And Donald Glover's This Is America is more of an interpretation. It's a little abstract. It's showing you all these things that it wants you to pull from, but it's also leaving so much to think about. It's an open question. It's an open statement. The statement is being made, but it's open for people to take however they want to take. So let's be real. Are people inspired by similar things? Yes, that is something that happens. And do people just straight up steal songs and still videos and concepts? Yes, it happens all the time. So what is my answer to it? Did he steal that concept from exhibit or not? My answer is yes and no, I know, I know it seems like a cop out, but hear me out. One thing that I like that Austin Cleon says is an artist's job is to collect ideas, literally any and everything can be inspiration. So for one, let's talk about the fact that Donald Glover did not do this in a vacuum. It wasn't like it was just him who came up with a song and the video concept all by himself. There's teams that make these things happen. So possibly somebody did see the exhibit video. It seems very likely actually, but just because you're seeing this thing and you're collecting these ideas doesn't mean that you aren't able to use that inspiration to make something else without being accused of stealing. So let's just take some of the funk off the word stealing. And yes, the idea or some inspiration might have come from the video. However, when you look at the changes and the differences, it was enough to truly make it his own. Donald Glover made it his own. So I would not say he stole it. Maybe there was some modeling that happened, but this is not a copycat. It's completely different in the same way a mom and dad can come together, have a kid and the kid be completely different than the mom and dad, although it has elements of both. And if you look at so many of the greatest artists, right, the people who really produced this extreme creativity, they recognize this concept, right? They're humble and they'll talk about the fact that they have all of these inspirations, they can list all of these inspirations. The greatest artists are astute students. And it's because they understand it to be true that they are pulling concepts from left and right, then there's inspiration everywhere that they can acknowledge that and then do the extra work to make it their own. It's the people who are kind of ignorant of that fact or just failing to be truthful about that fact that typically end up just being copycats because they want to make it seem like it's original. And when you're doing it in that way, you probably won't put in the work to truly bring it to another level where it is something of your own. It is something original because being different in art is really about different reference points. A lot of times people pull things from other people. A lot of times fans might have their minds blown because they've never seen something like this before. And they're like, yo, man, this artist is different. They're doing something I've never seen. But that artist has different reference points. Maybe they visit a country that you've never seen. Maybe they study something that you aren't aware of or they have experiences that you aren't aware of or that you didn't go through. Those different reference points are what allow us to create something unique, even if we have some of that similar information. So to close it off, I'll actually bring up one of my old quotes that I wrote in a book that I did in 2014 called You Are God, the Three Core Powers of Success. Quote, the mother of your greatest idea is someone else's idea. Because, hey, if you think about it, how many things do we think of only because somebody else said it and they sparked a completely different idea? Maybe it's not even related to what they said, but it made us think of something. And that's the beauty of creativity. So, as I said in the beginning, I would love to know what you guys think. Do you think that Donald Glover stole this concept? Also, if you actually are familiar with him possibly stealing that song allegedly, do you think he stole the song itself? What are your thoughts? I would love to know in the comment section below and just your thoughts on art and creativity and how it should be seen in this conversation. Let's get to continue. And with that being said, this video is brought to you by rammannetwork.com because I signed myself. We help artists build their brands, develop their marketing plan and grow their fan base. If you like this video, go ahead to like button. If you like it, you might as well share it. And if you're not subscribed, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe button.