Damon Albarn has said that some of his choices for collaborators on Gorillaz‘s new album were influenced by his teenage daughter’s music tastes.

Gorillaz – Albarn’s virtual band with Jamie Hewlett – release their fifth album ‘Humanz’ on April 28. Guests on the record include off-kilter artists such as DRAM, Kelela, Zebra Katz and Popcaan.

Albarn recently told Billboard of his 17-year-old daughter, Missy: “Some of the decisions for this record were fuelled by wanting to impress her still”. Missy, according to the article, is a big fan of Vince Staples and Danny Brown, both of whom appear on ‘Humanz’.


So far, ‘Humanz’ has been preceded by Pusha T and Mavis Staples collaboration ‘Let Me Out’, plus four other songs from the record: ‘Saturnz Barz’, ‘Andromeda’, ‘We Got The Power’ and ‘Ascension’. Read NME‘s reviews of those latter tracks.

Gorillaz are currently letting fans listen to their album in full via their app at select locations around the world.

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Yesterday saw Murdoc and 2D – two of the four virtual characters from Gorillaz – give their first ever live interview. They also spoke to NME (watch in the video below).

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Elsewhere in his Billboard interview, Albarn explained why he removed every Donald Trump reference from their new album.

“Trump’s ascension was one of the sources of energy that we meditated on, when it was like, ‘Ahh, that’s ridiculous, that could never happen,’” Albarn explained, adding: “There’s no references to [Trump] on the record – in fact, any time when anyone made any reference, I edited it out. I don’t want to give the most famous man on earth any more fame, particularly. He doesn’t need it!”