“Let Me Out” [ft. Mavis Staples & Pusha T]

Gorillaz’s music is a big circus tent in which artists from different stylistic worlds romp around, trying out feats of cross-genre daredevilry without fear of falling. How else could you make a coherent album crammed with guests spots from Lou Reed, Snoop Dogg, and Bobby Womack? For their latest trick, Gorillaz attempt a high-wire balancing act that pairs the cartoon band with the rapper Pusha T and the soul icon Mavis Staples. The result sounds less like a Youtube mash-up and more like logical extension of Pusha’s particular brand of gangster gospel—angry couplets addressed, prayer-like, to “Mama Mavis” over minor-key pianos and big crashing drums. Staples,in turn, sounds urgent, quavering as she sings, “You got to die a little/If you want to live.”

“Let Me Out” almost loses its footing, however, when Damon Albarn’s modulated voice peeks through, sounding disaffected and offhand. It undercuts the song’s dramatic tension, threatening to reduce Pusha’s dark persona to a cartoonish caricature amid Gorillaz’s head-bopping, radio-friendly beat, EDM snares, and phoned-in hook. Thankfully, this anxiety is put to rest by Pusha’s forceful second verse (“Tell me I won’t die at the hands of the police/Promise me I won’t outlive my nephew and my niece”) and Staples’ voice, which again raises goosebumps. They prove that “Let Me Out” succeeds when Albarn sets the stage and then remains (mostly) out of sight.