May 18, 2016
In the waning months of 2015, October to be precise, Gorillaz animator Jamie Hewlett announced that "2016 is going to be Gorillaz all year." But aside from teasing fans with some brief studio footage back in April, the group has been relatively silent.
Then, Gorillaz frequent collaborator Remi Kabaka posted a picture of rapper Vic Mensa jamming out in the studio. And while Mensa's face is obscured and the original Vic Mensa tag has since been removed it's unlikely that Kabaka forgot it was actually someone else.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFhO3qCHv-o/
While not exactly the "Gorillaz all year," that most of us were hoping for, it's a start. Mensa's likely appearance on the Gorillaz fifth album marks his first official collaboration with the group but not his first time working with them. Mensa played "Clint Eastwood," on stage with Damon Albarn in 2014.
RollingStone asked Damon Albarn last October about what he was working on, to which he replied:
I'm in the very early days on a new Gorillaz record. So far, it's really fast, and it's got quite a lot of energy. I've been stuck on piano, somewhere off Broadway, for years now. I want to go somewhere completely opposite of that.
Considering the relatively laid back nature of the Gorillaz last album The Fall, you can bet that Damon Albarn hasn't lost his flair for experimentation. In the vein of more uptempo Gorillaz check out their 2012 converse collaboration with Outkast's Andre 3000 and LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy.
https://youtu.be/0nOGy52xygY
Image: Stereogum