Gorillaz Sound System



Gorillaz Sound System (often abbreviated as GSS) is an audiovisual collective founded by Gorillaz member Remi Kabaka Jr. in 2007. It was a party system and is self described in their social media pages as “a state-of-the-art audio-visual 4-man outfit incorporating all the hugely successful Gorillaz hits coupled with outsized projections of their award winning animation".

Background
Gorillaz Sound System was originally launched by Remi Kabaka as a party system involving the mixing of DJ sets with unique visuals and remixes of Gorillaz tracks and other songs. Their lineup originally consisted of Remi Kabaka Jr., DJ Kofi, DJ Guy C, and Jodo (with 2-D voice actor Nelson De Freitas originally included in their lineup as an emcee, hyping up the crowd). Their debut gig was played at an MTV party in 2007, with the project officially kicking off in 2008 and touring until 2015 before returning for Demon Dayz Festival Margate in 2017. They are visually represented by an image of Russel and his Hip Hop Machine. In their 2008 press release, they were sanctioned by Murdoc and given the official Gorillaz stamp of approval, with Murdoc saying on his Myspace page "G.S.S. are the only people I'd trust to entertain my amigos apart from myself. The way I look at it, this is kinda like the Pope giving his blessing to another parish. And anyway I can't get the records out of those little paper cases, my nails are too long.".

Work
Gorillaz Sound System have done remixes of various Gorillaz songs such as On Melancholy Hill, Superfast Jellyfish, Clint Eastwood, Kids With Guns, and many others. In 2014, they remixed the Damon Albarn song Hollow Ponds from his 2014 debut solo album Everyday Robots). The collective had Soundcloud, Mixcloud, and Youtube accounts where they posted mixtapes featuring music from various artists. Their collaboration roster includes artists such as Spoek Mathombo and Pauli Lovejoy.

2015-present
In 2015, Gorillaz Sound System stopped touring after Kabaka became the official third real life member of Gorillaz and joined the band lineup as their live drummer and producer, after over a decade of providing the voice of Russel Hobbs.

Trivia

 * Nelson De Freitas was once a part of this collective’s line up as an MC who hyped up the crowd.
 * Albarn and Hewlett became convinced to make a third Gorillaz album (instead of Carousel) after going to a Gorillaz Sound System show and seeing the reaction from crowds to old Gorillaz songs.
 * Gorillaz Sound System once performed Feel Good Inc. live with Damon Albarn and De La Soul.
 * GSS' first performance in Brazil was on November 5th, 2011 at the FW 3D Ceará Music. However, Gorillaz themselves only had their first show in Brazil in 2018, almost 7 years later.