Gorillaz Premiere New "PAC-MAN" Visual with ScHoolboy Q

Gorillaz continue their ambitious ongoing Song Machine: Season One initiative with their latest collaboration: “PAC-MAN” featuring Top Dawg Entertainment’s own ScHoolboy Q. The visual is an acid-induced array of 1980s video game nostalgia that then follows a quarantined Q recording his verse live with some added neon effects for good measure.

The Song Machine series has been at the forefront of the group’s 20th anniversary celebration with curated pairings that introduce artists from around the world. Each track has brought out the best in their collaborators like Octavian‘s emotive “Friday 13th” and slowthai’s show-stealing verse on “Momentary Bliss”. It also appears that they’re going to continue dropping singles with no overarching plan to release an album on a given date — instead each will song will continue the series until they decide it’s time to move toward a Season Two.

This is a top-tier ScHoolboy verse. Groovy Q finds his groove over the pop-leaning instrumentation. He touches on his drive, his heart and his journey as an artist before diving into the criminal justice system in his native Southern California. His next solo project is promised to release later this year, but with the unprecedented coronavirus delaying numerous projects, a date hasn’t been confirmed. The effort also comes with “Song Machine: Machine Bitez #9” and “Machine Bitez #10” where the crew talks about Q’s one-take verse and his profound content matter.

Earlier this year, Superplastic unveiled the first Gorillaz vinyl art toy in over 10 years. The group also celebrated their 20th anniversary with an extensive almanac full of 120 pages of both classic and new full-color illustrations.

Watch “PAC-MAN” above and stream the new single below. In more music updates, revisit HYPEBEAST Music’s latest interview with Nick Hakim surrounding his critically-acclaimed sophomore project Will This Make Me Good.