WAMH x The Student: Top 10 Gorillaz Rap Features

As the most internationally renowned project of British musical polymath Damon Albarn, the virtual band Gorillaz is defined by its eclectic incorporation of varying sonic influences, ranging from Jamaican dub to Indian raga, into a cohesive whole on each of its albums. However, one constant element throughout the band’s albums, appearing on almost every one in some shape or form, is rap. Gorillaz’s 2001 self-titled debut album leaned closely on classic hip-hop structures among other influences, and although Albarn would further diversify his sound on later albums, he would never leave rap behind. Many noteworthy rappers, from genre veterans like De La Soul and Snoop Dogg to newer names like Vince Staples and Danny Brown, have made guest appearances on Gorillaz tracks — but who among these many gives the best performances? Here, in chronological order of release, I list 10 of the most notable and memorable featured performances by rappers on Gorillaz songs, offering brief insights into what makes each one stand out from the rest.

Del the Funky Homosapien — “Clint Eastwood”

Given the inherent theatricality of Gorillaz as an audio/visual project, this was one of the best first collaborations they could have picked. Having previously created a cyborg rebel persona on his dystopian concept album “Deltron 3030,” Del throws himself entirely into character on “Clint Eastwood,” temporarily reinventing himself as the bar-spitting spectre living inside the head of animated drummer Russel, as seen in the instantly iconic video. Like the cartoon ghost shown towering over the graveyard, Del verbally stands tall over the Ennio Morricone-sampling beat and Albarn’s strung-out choruses, professing his ability as a “spiritual hero who / Appears in you to clear your view when you’re too crazy” with a confidence that helps sell the entire concept of Gorillaz almost all by itself.

Phi Life Cypher — “The Sounder”

This English underground duo’s original verses for “Clint Eastwood” didn’t make the cut for the final album, which was probably for the best: The intensity of their delivery on the released alternate version comes close to overwhelming everything else about the song. That same intensity is channeled to much better effect on this minor B-side, which casts the pair as rowdy hype men for Gorillaz over a droning Indian-style electronic instrumental. The result is something that feels more charmingly “old-school” than Gorillaz’s other rap-focused output, harkening back to the days of the street parties that birthed hip-hop through sheer enthusiasm for the music.

Bootie Brown — “Dirty Harry”

Some of Gorillaz’s best work comes about when a song’s trajectory completely changes in the middle, and “Dirty Harry” is no exception. The initial funky synths and sing-songy chorus by a youth choir give way at the bridge’s start to a string orchestra heralding the forceful arrival of Pharcyde member Bootie, who paints a scathing portrait of a reluctant soldier — a “peace-loving decoy ready for retaliation” — in a dead-end position with mounting pressure from all sides, longing for the days “when [he] used to dance.” The shadow of the contemporary Iraq War looms heavily over most of Gorillaz’s sophomore album, “Demon Days,” but “Dirty Harry,” in particular, brings this darkness to the forefront for clear dramatic effect.

MF Doom — “November Has Come”

Gorillaz strip back their lush instrumentation to handclaps, a bass groove, and a radio-transmitter whine, without any major additions, to make room for the centerpiece: A characteristically twisty performance from the chrome-masked supervillain of rap. While the production here packs less of a punch than typically heard on Doom’s other work, his intricate, shifting rhyme schemes prove more than enough to carry the song on its own, even if his specific lyrics advertising that “doper rhymin’, more worther than the Hope Diamond” are liable to get lost in the shuffle. No matter: Doom has long prioritized style over substance, and Gorillaz have rendered that style in its purest form for all to see here.

Kano — “White Flag”

In a rare example of multiple unaffiliated rappers appearing on a Gorillaz track, “White Flag” features British MCs Bashy and Kano trading verses over a sea of electric blips, bookended by a repeated graceful mini-suite of Arabic strings. The two rappers’ aggregate product is itself fantastic, but at the level of individual comparison, Kano blows Bashy out of the water: His more forceful, confident delivery takes full advantage of the extra driving layer added to the backing beat at his entrance, turning up the song’s overall intensity. In the context of parent album “Plastic Beach,” the Bashy-Kano switch on “White Flag” palpably reflects a transition from confusion at arrival on the titular island of floating trash into excitement at its myriad possibilities for the guest stars and listeners alike — a place with “No feds, no stress, no rent / No superficial shit, just real flow.”

Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) — “Sweepstakes”

In terms of sheer technical showcase, Bey’s performance on “Sweepstakes” is one of the most effective in Gorillaz’s discography. Though the lyrical content is fairly simple, consisting only of a duplicitous carnival barker’s attraction spiel (“There’s math and there’s dealers and players and me / They say that they winners; okay, well, let’s see … ”) repeated ad nauseam, Bey finds new dimensions in the song by changing his cadence with each repetition over the same beat, which itself gradually grows more complex over the first few repetitions before culminating in a swinging brass ensemble. The listening experience of “Plastic Beach” may become more muddled as it reaches its end, due to a lot of interconnected songs being left on the cutting-room floor, but “Sweepstakes” remains a highlight of its back half.

André 3000 — “DoYaThing”

Sometimes great things have humble origins — in this case, a song this distinct, born out of a promotion for a Gorillaz-branded Converse shoe line. Albarn and LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy’s sparse but energetic lo-fi beat proves a perfect playground for André to exhibit his fast-paced freestyling skill, as he barely even stops to catch his breath while soliloquizing on his unmatchable style: “If it ain’t this, it ain’t dope, it don’t flush / And if it ain’t hip or don’t hop, well then hush.” If it had turned out, as it seemed at the time of “DoYaThing”’s release, that this would be the last we’d ever hear from Gorillaz, I can confidently say they would’ve gone out on a high note.

Schoolboy Q — “Pac-Man”

For their “Song Machine” project, rather than creating a unified-theme album, Gorillaz opted to release music on a song-by-song basis, allowing for more concentrated stylistic explorations. In this fashion, “Pac-Man” delves deep into an infectious electro-funk beat that evokes classic video game chip-tunes, with Q’s assertive boasts of how “all the trauma from past never taught [him] to fear heights” in his upward trajectory through life providing extra kick. Despite the steadily building energy, though, the song seals the deal by cutting out seemingly before Q finishes his verse — a perfect reflection of an arcade coin-op play session’s arbitrary sudden ending, that emphasizes the all-too-tight hold the preceding experience had on you.

JPEGMafia — “MLS”

Part of the fun of a Gorillaz song is seeing what unlikely combination of musicians Albarn chooses to put together, but this one is probably the most unlikely. Paired up with the hyperfeminine J-rock girl group Chai, known offbeat rapper/producer “Peggy” leans into the juxtaposition’s absurdity, punctuating the bright and happy-sounding keyboards and synths with references to guns, discussion of record-label politics, and the occasional haughty tone or high-pitched “Yee!” at the end of a line. Despite being relegated to a deluxe-edition bonus track, Peggy’s proclivity for audacious verses (or as he puts it, for “saying that shit that you scared to say”) helps prop up “MLS” as one of Gorillaz’s most amusingly left-field songs.

AJ Tracey — “Jimmy Jimmy”

As part of the three-track “Meanwhile … ” EP released in commemoration of London’s annual Notting Hill Carnival in light of the event’s pandemic-related 2021 cancellation, “Jimmy Jimmy” may well be one of the most underrated songs in Gorillaz’s canon of work. Tracey’s searing account of a Black British youth stuck in a cycle of drug dealing and his journey toward financial and emotional stability forms one of the most vivid “character studies” heard on a Gorillaz song in years, with the working-class focus drawing a neat parallel to Albarn’s evocation of the Clash, the egalitarian musical heroes of his own generation, in the instrumentation. It’s a perfect encapsulation of everything Gorillaz ought to be: An intersection of old and new music, creating a window that peeks into another, more vivid world.