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“Controllah“ is the twelfth track from the deluxe edition of Gorillaz' eighth studio album Cracker Island. The song features brazilian singer, composer and paulista funk artist Jefferson Cristian, better known as MC Bin Laden.
During an interview for the Spanish version of the Rolling Stone magazine on October 2021, Damon Albarn stated he'd like to work with more (Latin) American artists, citing MC Bin Laden - presented to him by Slowthai - as an example. Later, Damon told a Brazilian fan while they were in São Paulo, after performing at the MITA Festival during the Gorillaz World Tour 2022, that he tried to contact him but wasn't able to. Bin Laden became aware of this, and tried to contact Damon himself but was also getting no responses. It was only after he contacted Damon on Instagram when they finally got to talk and organize a collab.
The two of them, along with the Gorillaz band, met at the RockIt Studio in Rio de Janeiro (where the band would also perform for the tour) on the 19th of May 2022. Together, they ended up recording two songs; the first one sampled the demo "Shaga Laga", featured on the Demoz LP, and had a "relaxed" feel to it, featuring verses by Bin Laden and Damon sung on their respective languages, about not knowing where you are or what had recently happened to you - which later became Controllah. The second one was a mix between elements of "festa junina" (which translates to "june celebration") - a traditional Brazilian multicultural celebration - and British bass sounds, which ended up evolving into an underground funk song with an aggressive and accelerated flow, to which Damon said: "Yes, this is exactly what I want, this is it!"
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