Damon Albarn

Almost every musician, when they find a formula that works, repeats it until it wears out.

Damon Albarn did exactly the opposite, all his life. He had one of the biggest bands in the United Kingdom in his hands and, instead of squeezing it dry, he set about inventing a cartoon band. Then an opera in Mandarin. Then records made in the heart of Africa.

What drives him is not a style: it is curiosity, the unstoppable urge to go where he has never been.

The house he grew up in

To understand where that curiosity comes from you have to look at the house he was raised in, because it was not a trait he picked up: it was an inheritance.

He was born in London in 1968, the eldest child of an artistic, bohemian family. His father, Keith, was a visual artist and designer, and in the sixties he briefly managed Soft Machine, an avant-garde band. His mother, Hazel, was a theatre set designer and worked for Joan Littlewood's legendary company.

In that house you were not brought up to fit in, but to create. He and his sister Jessica—also an artist—were raised in a liberal environment and in the Quaker faith, a branch of Christianity known for its pacifism. Damon used to say, with a laugh, that he agreed with his parents, and that his way of rebelling had been a strange one: following them, instead of going against them.

And there is one detail from that childhood that explains almost everything. The stereo at home was not playing the pop of the day: his parents listened to old blues, Indian ragas and African music.

Which means that the music of the world, the kind Damon would go looking for as an adult in Mali and the Congo, was already playing in his living room when he was a boy.

As a child he learned guitar, piano and violin, and an early song of his won a national young songwriters' prize. When he was nine, the family moved from London to a town in Essex, and there, he said, he felt out of place for the first time: a city boy from an artistic household in the middle of suburban England.

That feeling of never quite fitting in, on top of a home where experimenting was the normal thing, built the restless musician he would become.

Two whole careers before he started

With "Parklife" and its pop wit, Blur were enormous. But Albarn, at the top, was already looking elsewhere.

Together with the illustrator Jamie Hewlett he created Gorillaz, a virtual band made up of animated characters, which ended up being a worldwide phenomenon and one of the most original ideas in the pop of this century.

Two projects that, each on its own, would have been enough for a whole career. For Albarn they were barely the beginning.

Africa, the opera, the supergroup

Because what really defines him is what he did outside those two bands, always pushed by that curiosity with no brakes.

In 2000, a trip to Mali with Oxfam opened up a world. He fell in love with African music, and instead of flirting with it from a distance, he went all in: he recorded "Mali Music" with Malian musicians, "Kinshasa One Two" with musicians from the Congo, and founded Africa Express, an initiative for African and Western artists to play together, as equals. He even put together an orchestra of Syrian musicians.

He formed a supergroup, The Good, the Bad & the Queen, with Paul Simonon—the bassist from The Clash—Simon Tong from The Verve and Tony Allen, Fela Kuti's drummer.

And—this is the most astonishing part—he wrote operas. "Monkey: Journey to the West", sung entirely in Mandarin and based on a sixteenth-century Chinese novel, premiered at the Manchester International Festival in 2007 and reached the Royal Opera House in London the following year. Then came "Dr Dee", about an Elizabethan scholar, mixing Renaissance music with electronica.

The line that explains the whole thing

About the opera in Mandarin he said he wanted to immerse himself in a culture completely different from his own.

There is the engine behind all of it: not the ambition to repeat a success, but the desire to learn something he does not know. That is why his career does not have a genre; it has an attitude.

In 2014 he released his first solo studio album, "Everyday Robots", intimate and melancholy, nominated for the Mercury Prize. And meanwhile he was reviving Blur, carrying on with Gorillaz, touring the world—he passed through Chile more than once—and starting three new things.

The student of the world

Damon Albarn is still the same restless animal he always was. In a music full of artists who find their niche and settle in, he is the one who never stopped moving house.

If you know him only from "Song 2" or from "Feel Good Inc.", you have heard the least of him. Go to his operas, to his Mali records, to The Good, the Bad & the Queen.

You are going to find a man who proved that a pop star can be, for a whole lifetime, a student of the world.

Because the most rebellious thing an artist can do—more than any scandal—is to refuse to go on being who they already were. Albarn has spent thirty years doing exactly that: turning, without stopping, into someone new.

Sources

Damon Albarn (Whitechapel, London, 23 March 1968), British musician, songwriter and producer. The eldest son of the artist and designer Keith Albarn, who in the sixties was briefly the manager of Soft Machine, and of Hazel Albarn (née Dring), a theatre set designer who worked for Joan Littlewood's company; his younger sister, Jessica, is also an artist. He was raised in a bohemian, liberal environment—in Leytonstone and later in Essex—and in the Quaker religion; at home they listened to blues, Indian ragas and African music. He rose to fame in the nineties as the vocalist and main songwriter of Blur ("Parklife", 1994). Together with the illustrator Jamie Hewlett he created Gorillaz. After a trip to Mali in 2000 with Oxfam, he explored African music on "Mali Music" (2002) and "Kinshasa One Two" (2011, with musicians from the Congo), and founded Africa Express (2006). He formed the supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen with Paul Simonon (The Clash), Simon Tong (The Verve) and Tony Allen (Fela Kuti's drummer), produced by Danger Mouse. He composed operas and theatre works: "Monkey: Journey to the West" (sung in Mandarin, premiered on 28 June 2007 at the Manchester International Festival and staged at the Royal Opera House in London in July 2008), "Dr Dee" (2012) and "wonder.land". "Everyday Robots" (2014) was his first solo studio album and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Blur and Gorillaz remain active. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Readings of the meaning of his work are offered as the author's interpretation. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Britannica, AllMusic, WFUV, Wikipedia and other press coverage.