Gorillaz Are Human After All : The Record : NPR. Gorillaz latest album, Humanz, is out April 2. The rapper appears with Mavis Staples on the song .

• The Attention Deficit Creator Disorder trope as used in popular culture. Sometimes a creator becomes extremely popular, and thus extremely in demand.
• Play gorillaz escape to plastic beach game and find a way past the fruitcake traffic cop and a sinister bounty hunter as you make your way to the music recording.

Pusha explained on Apple's Beats 1 Radio that Gorillaz' co- conceptualist and primary musician Damon Albarn instructed him to approach the album . But even a cursory listen to this dense, hugely ambitious, emphatically caliginous and yet ultimately uplifting album confirms that much of Humanz was conceived with Trump as a possibility. Convert Udf To Mp4 Software Download more. Let's make a party record about the world going f- cking nuts. But decades before these records, David Bowie, Prince and countless others similarly combined celebration with chaos. There'd be no jazz, blues, rock and roll, soul, hip- hop or house if African- Americans hadn't combined pain with transcendence and put it to music.

Short on cash? There are plenty of affordable festivals to fit even.

But the degree to which Humanz places suffering and salvation in a musical context that's as forthrightly contemporary as its headline- referencing socio- political lyrics is rather remarkable, especially considering that Albarn is a wealthy white middle- aged Anglo dude, who, historically speaking, would typically be exploiting Britpop nostalgia with his other, conventional band Blur and maximizing his profits as a tax exile. He should logically be bland- ing out, not making his music and message more radical than ever.

Even more so than previous Gorillaz projects, which have featured such pioneers as Bobby Womack, Snoop Dogg, Danger Mouse, Ike Turner and many other titans, black Americans and their European brethren are all over Humanz, which is largely played, produced and written by Albarn and Anthony . Joining them is Remi Kabaka, the London- based son of the same- named Nigerian drummer, and a crazy- quilt collection of African diaspora vocal talent that span from southern soul traditionalist Anthony Hamilton to Grace Jones. Albarn croons a verse here and there in his signature world- weary sigh, but even more so than before, he wisely steps aside.

He's gathered a cast with something to say, and he's not getting in their way. As its first song makes inescapably clear, race is a central Humanz issue. He's on a Chicken Little trip, twerk- style: .

Then Staples blazes back for the finale, where he aims to visit the White House just so he can do literally what many claim Trump is doing figuratively — wipe his butt with the flag. Singing lead is Jehnny Beth of Savages, England's closest analog to Russia's Pussy Riot. She's white and a French expat, but in spirit she's akin to Staples and the album's other voices in opposition to Trump and Theresa May, England's Prime Minister.

Remarkably, they're supplied by Jean- Michel Jarre, who is to French synth- rock what Giorgio Moroder is to international disco. Joining them is Albarn's old rival Noel Gallagher, the ex- Oasis guitarist who once wished Albarn would . Despite a fleeting appearance from Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, Humanz' demarks Gorillaz' biggest break from Albarn's past.

Nearly everything reflects hip- hop's current hyper- adventurousness, which means little rock, but plenty of just about everything else. Occasionally there are samples; most notably a section of Steve Martin's A Wild and Crazy Guy in which the comedian leads his audience to proclaim the Non- Conformist Oath: . Sensual and unfettered, he soars through the syncopated track's sleek club funk, merely hinting at the strife that pervades Humanz' bulk. Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine applies his French- Ghanaian heritage to an idiosyncratic blend of ardent piano- pop and avant- garde classical that's equal parts Nina Simone and Anohni.

Released as a single the day before Trump's inauguration, . Clementine sings of a tree he aims to protect from . Even more sinister is . Danny Brown gatecrashes . De La Soul's Posdnous, who rapped on Gorillaz' 2. And Anthony Hamilton positively rips through . Grace Jones doesn't sing so much as haunt .

Akin to Gorillaz's deceptively serene Plastic Beach, . But no other guest brings the commitment of Mavis Staples on . The aforementioned presidential angle is ultimately just a means to capture that moment of flux, and, in fact, Trump and Obama's names have been wiped from the final mix because Humanz isn't ultimately about them: As its title suggests, it's about us. Throughout it, Albarn favors the great- great- great grandchildren of slaves because slavery represents the ultimate commodification; when you hear Hamilton or either Staples (Mavis or Vince) summon its sorrows, there's no question they understand it. Time and time again, Humanz taps into slave voices; the choir that ties together its disparate threads sings almost exclusively in them. Has Albarn earned the right to handle such weight? And what does he gain from this approach?

Has he been hijaking bohemian black culture with Gorillaz the same way he, as an arty suburban outsider, adopted a working class Londoner's stance during Blur's Britpop peak? Is he seeking absolution — a now- privileged white figure bettering his own image through proximity to the oppressed? That would be the case if there weren't reciprocity involved, or if he were a shoddy artist. He's helped give Del and De La and Womack stellar, singular hits, not boilerplate product. And he proved his R& B bona fides as far back as 1. While other white singers appropriate soul to the degree that they now crowd black musicians off the radio, Albarn has essentially handed Humanz over to them to shape in their own image.

Having lived in the firing range for so long, they turn the threat of their genocide into a fevered but utterly free celebration of the here and now. That's what gives them the power — to dream, persevere, change and love each other the way the final song testifies. Even more so than the rest of us, that's all they have, but that's a lot.

Best Summer Music Festivals 2. A Guide to Every Lineup Near You. Purple Hatter's Ball (Live Oak, FL, June 2- 4)Roots Picnic (Philadelphia, PA, June 3)Free Press Summerfest (Houston, TX, June 3- 4)Blue Ox (Eau Claire, WI, June 8- 1. Carolina Country (Myrtle Beach, SC, June 8- 1. Disc Jam (Stephentown, NY, June 8- 1.

Live 1. 05 BFD (Mountain View, CA, June 1. Laure. Live (Russell & Chester Township, OH, June 1. Country Jam (Grand Junction, CO, June 1. Peaks (Bend, OR, June 1. Vans Warped Tour (Multiple cities, June 1. August 6)Country Summer (Santa Rosa, CA, June 1.

What The Festival (Wolf Run Ranch, OR, June 1. ROMP Fest (Owensboro, KY, June 2. Country Fest (Cadott, WI, Jun 2.

Kate Wolf Music Festival (Laytonville, CA, June 2. Paradiso (George, WA, June 2. Solid Sound Festival (North Adams, MA, June 2. Bonanza Campout (Heber, UT, June 2. High Sierra (Quincy, CA, June 2.

July 2)8. 0/3. 5 (Des Moines, IA, July 7- 8)RIDE Festival (Telluride, CO, July 8- 9)Levitate Festival (Marshfield, MA, July 8- 9)Brooklyn Hip- Hop Festival (Brooklyn, NY, July 1. Rock Fest Wisconsin (Cadott, WI, July 1.

Northwest String Summit (North Plains, OR, July 1. Great South Bay (Patchogue, NY, July 1.

Chicago Open Air (Bridgeview, IL, July 1. Country Jam USA (Eau Claire, WI, July 2. Country Thunder Wisconsin (Twin Lakes, WI, July 2. Grass. Roots Fest (Trumansburg, NY, July 2.

Capitol Hill Block Party (Seattle, WA, July 2. OZY Fest (New York, NY, July 2. Floyd. Fest (Floyd, VA, July 2. XPo. Nential Music Festival (Camden, NJ, July 2. Rocky. Grass (Lyons, CO, July 2. Mountain Home (Elmore County, ID, July 2.

Mo Pop (Detroit, MI, July 2. Musikfest (Bethlehem, PA, August 4- 1.

Hinterland (Saint Charles, IA, August 4- 5)ARISE (Loveland, CO, August 4- 6)Oregon Jamboree (Sweet Home, OR, August 4- 6)Hard Summer (Fontana, CA, August 5- 6)The Peach (Scranton, PA, August 1. Summer Set (Somerset, WI, August 1. Elements Fest (New York, NY, August 1. Oregon Eclipse (Big Summit Prairie, OR, August 1. Alive (Des Moines, IA, August 1. Psycho Las Vegas (Las Vegas, NV, August 1. Maha (Omaha, NE, August 1.

Project Pabst (Portland, OR, August 2. Burning Man (Black Rock Desert, NV, August 2. September 4)Breakaway (Columbus, OH, September 1- 2)North Coast (Chicago, IL, September 1- 3)Bass Center (Hampton, VA, September 1- 3)Dancefestopia (Kansas City, MO, September 7- 1.

Middle Waves (Fort Wayne, IN, September 1. Telluride Blues (Telluride, CO, September 1.

Fresh. Grass (North Adams, MA, September 1. Cayuga Sound (Ithaca, NY, September 2. Imagine (Hampton, GA, September 2. Lou. Fest (St. Louis, MO, September 9- 1.