Beyond Bathing Ape NFTs Banksy’s pink chimpanzee stencil silkscreens and ongoing reissues of The Monkees old albums, the greatest simian contribution to popular culture is Gorillaz, the 3-D virtual British band formed by singer and musician Damon Albarn and graphic artist Jamie Hewlett, and consisting of four, spikey fictional members: 2-D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle and Russel Hobbs.
As a part of a cartoon universe presented in boldly colored music videos, comic strips and short films, theirs is a richly comported, apocalyptic world made doubly explosive and dystopian by its self-made soundtrack of punk, funk, hip hop, house and dub reggae all blended into one frighteningly energized froth.
Currently on a tour with dates at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Boston’s TD Garden, Boston, Philadelphia’s Metropolitan Opera House, Columbia’s Merriweather Post Pavilion and several Florida events coming up, the cross-cutting mash up of flying art exhibition and trap hop pop concert is a moveable feast with a deep jeepy beat.
One of the first things to know about its visuals before walking in to any Gorillaz show – other than preparing to be wowed with a long, 30 song set list with more titillating comix visuals than the Tate – is that, as far as its look goes, the London-based comic/graphic artist and Gorillaz co-founder Hewlett could be the person behind anonymous street artist Banksy, this according to forensic experts as far back as 2018.
From initial reports from Britain’s National Arts Program website, anonymous forensic psychologists (anonymous because they don’t want to get the asses kicked at revealing the long-hidden identity of Banksy or receive “hate mail for unmasking him”) believe that the Gorillaz co-founder and the notoriously private Banksy is one in the same.
First, Hewlett is originally from Horsham, Sussex, where Banksy had struck early and often in his initial career as a street artist with his wall graffiti art and militaristic monkeys. Several of Banksy’s earliest stencils wound up in the Gorillaz’s official music video for their “Tomorrow Comes Today” single as well as part of the staged backdrop at the ensemble’s live show at The Metropolitan Opera House. One could say that Banksy and Gorillaz helped put each other on the map at their twilight’s first gleaming.
Cartoon Gorillaz member Murdoc said of the collaboration “We focused in on a little piece of graffiti by a then unknown artist called Banksy. It was a spray painted image we found daubed on a wall, a bit of graffiti of a monkey wearing the statement “Laugh Now But One Day We’ll Be In Charge”, as a kind of placard-cum-apron. I thought it was a good piece of imagery to stick in. Kind of summed up how I felt about our band.”
Banksy’s street artistry can also be seen on the front cover of Albarn’s other band, Blur’s Think Tank album of 2013, a move that confused fans of Banksy as he normally eschewed so-called commercial work, and made a point of dissing street artists who did otherwise. “I’ve done a few things to pay the bills, and I did the Blur album. It was a good record and [the commission was] quite a lot of money,” Banksy wrote to journalist Will Ellsworth-Jones in 2012 for Banksy: The Man Behind The Wall. “I think that’s a really important distinction to make. If it’s something you actually believe in, doing something commercial doesn’t turn it to shit just because it’s commercial. Otherwise, you’ve got to be a socialist rejecting capitalism altogether, because the idea that you can marry a quality product with a quality visual and be a part of that even though it’s capitalistic is sometimes a contradiction you can’t live with. But sometimes it’s pretty symbiotic, like the Blur situation.”
While Joanna Brooks, a publicist for Banksy, told the British press that she could confirm that the Gorillaz Jamie was not the artist Banksy, in the United States, Britt Reyes – the Banksy expert tour guide behind the recent Germantown Rittenhouse SoundWorks/Rittenhouse FilmWorks pop-up exhibition, BanksyLand – told me that, “More importantly than who he is, is what he is.”
Reyes also told during our BanksyLand journey that “I get people stopping to take selfies with me or take photos of me on the DL,” says Reyes. “And I am flattered, but I’m not Banksy. And when people ask me if I’ve ever met Banksy, my response is, “Have you?”
With that, could Britt Reyes have also been Jamie Hewlett too, along with being Banksy? One person, three skillsets and workloads? The mind is boggled.
Who we do know that the public Hewlett is happens to be, in addition to being a Gorillaz and a neo-Banksy is the co-creator of the comic book Tank Girl with Alan Martin, an exhibiting fine artist through the famed Saatchi Gallery in London, and the man behind the quote, “If you’re going to pretend to be somebody you’re not – which is the whole point of being a rock star – then why not just invent fake characters and have them do it all for you?”
During the Los Angeles stop of its ongoing 2022 tour, Gorillaz held a six-month in advance playback session of “Cracker Island” at Henson Recording Studios in Hollywood with a Q&A with Albarn, visual artist Jamie Hewlett and the album’s producer, Greg Kurstin talking about the 2023 album’s guests – such as Bad Bunny and Stevie Nicks – as well as Gorillaz being the world’s first virtual group. “Being ahead of our time means you’re not capitalizing the way other people do,” Albarn told Variety in frustration of that first. (Albarn also went on to tell Variety that Gorillaz traveled to Jamaica to record “Tormenta” with Bad Bunny, a new track for Cracker Island, and, upon arrival in Jamaica via private jet, Bad Bunny showed up he without his passport and the prime minister of Jamaica allowed the Puerto Rican rapper entry if he recorded a unique “dubplate” for the PM).
First, last and present, the Gorillaz Banksy-heavy live experience always has as much to do with what goes on behind Albarn, his three drummers, four background vocalists, other band members and more rappers than a Tommy Boy reunion.
Remembering that Albarn is but a stand in for his virtual representation 2D (or is it the other way around?) songs such as “Skinny Ape” and “Rhinestone Eyes” feature the scrawny spikey graphic singer at his giddiest. If Hewlett’s animations is Gorillaz virtual personae, an answer to kinder gentler bubblegum-pop acts such as The Archies, 2D is its mean-edged Riverdale delinquent.
Cartoon Gorillaz member Murdoc Niccals – always acting in anger at 2D’s dominance within the comix band – can not be ignored, either. Along with being the visual front man of “Tomorrow Comes Today” and “White Light,” the pale green Murdoc gets a comeuppance of sorts in “Stylo,” when a smirking hitman, played by a racing Bruce Willis, gives the lanky graphic what-for. That said, the only Gorillaz visual show that was bigger than that on stage is what happens in the audience. Lined up and buying soon-to-be rare Gorillaz gear, the sold-out crowd’s millennial Murdocs and Gen Z 2Ds in captain caps and Mad Max foot gear moved like bees buzzing en masse toward the queen.
More animal than human and more cartoon than reality despite the fleshy funky humanity of its music, Gorillaz remain a pretend 3D experience beyond the comic strip graphics. “If you’re going to pretend to be somebody you’re not – which is the whole point of being a rock star – then why not just invent fake characters and have them do it all for you?”
Exactly.
