Sleeping Powder

Sleeping Powder is a song by Gorillaz released on the Humanz-era Gorillaz App and official Gorillaz YouTube channel on June 8, 2017, with a live debut occurring on the same date. It was released for streaming on Spotify and iTunes on June 16, 2017 as a single for the band. The song and video were finished only 3 days before release.

The video pictures 2-D appearing in front of surreal, somewhat psychedelic scenes while dancing. The video both starts and ends with 2-D sat at a harpsichord, playing the same melody each time.

It was written and recorded by 2-D alone only a few days before its concert debut at Brixton in 2017. Damon Albarn confirmed that 2-D, rather than Damon, wrote the song because 2-D felt "underrepresented" on Humanz. This is speculated to be an excuse for the fans not liking the lack of Damon's own vocals on the album.

Trivia

 * The footage used in the beginning of the video is from the 1980s anti-drug commercial entitled, Your Brain On Drugs, produced by the Drug Free America Foundation. The fifty second advertisement is one of the most famous anti-drug commercials in history.
 * The audio from this short scene on the video was featured on the fan-made Phase Four B-sides compilation album Hologramz as an interlude right before Sleeping Powder, with the name "Interlude: Drugs".
 * Damon Albarn confirmed that 2-D in the music video is Damon himself wearing a motion capture suit.
 * Trellick Tower, the birthplace of Gorillaz, is shown in the video.
 * The cover for the digital single release of the track is the picture of 2-D from the cover of Humanz, despite not being part of the album itself. The only time the song was included on Humanz was on a digital download of it on the Gorillaz website.