Momentz
by Gorillaz (featuring De La Soul)

Album: Humanz (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • This quirky, propulsive track features De La Soul. Their contribution to this tune meant the rap trio became the only guests to appear on a Gorillaz record three times, having previously popped up on Demon Days' "Feel Good Inc." and Plastic Beach's "Superfast Jellyfish."
  • Gorillaz founding member Damon Albarn told Rolling Stone how De La Soul's Posdnous hijacked the track from his original choice, comedian Dave Chappelle. "I didn't hear De La Soul for that," he recalled. "Posdnous shows up. He said, 'I want to do something.' We were trying to get Dave Chappelle to do that. But he knows Pos, and somehow, that's how that happened."

    "I don't tell people what to do," Albarn added. "I let people listen to loads of different tunes, then they choose the one they're into. You're never going to get the best out of people if you tell them, 'No, you have to do this.'"
  • Actor Ben Mendelsohn pops up on the outro, using his sinister voice to reference Donald Trump's caricature as a clown-like President exploiting racial fear for his own gain.

    Mendelsohn, best known for his roles in the Star Wars movie Rogue One and as the wayward brother Danny in Netflix thriller Bloodline, features in several spoken-word interludes throughout Humanz. Albarn told The Sun: "We did two very late nights of just recording his voice. I've got maybe five hours' worth of Ben talking madness. We imagined him as an insane late-night American disc jockey talking some very dark stuff."
  • Posdnuos told Q Magazine that Damon Albarn always questions what he is working on. The De La Soul rapper explained that the Gorillaz songwriter will record something and within a week he's often changed it and tried something else. "The original version of Momentz felt to me like some old ska record," he said, "but what I wrote changed what he wanted, so they made it a rigid robot beat."

Comments: 1

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