"Cosmosis" is the first track to be shared from There Is No End, which is the final studio album from legendary drummer Tony Allen, who died in April last year.
The new song, co-written by Damon Albarn, features vocals from Nigerian poet Ben Okri and Skepta, marking Skepta's second collaboration with Allen and Albarn following Gorillaz's "How Far?" track that landed in May last year.
Okri says, "We were in the studio with Damon Albarn and Remi Kabaka and Tony said, 'I lay out this universe in which dreams can come forth,' and then I understood that for him the beat he lays out is like this textual landscape. It has a psychic structure or DNA of a universe of music for which Tony had worked out a kind of mathematical basis for it in his elliptical beats, and then an invitation to dream could been given."
Allen wanted to work with new rappers for his album, but passed before most of the rappers had the chance to record their parts. Producer Vincent Taeger says, "Tony's idea was to give rappers the space to breathe and freely create. He wanted really not to just do Afrobeat, but rather something new and open, with very different sounds for the drums for each song and feels and tempos that were really grounded to the core in hip-hop."
Tracklist:
- Tony’s Praeludium
- Stumbling Down (Featuring Sampa The Great)
- Crushed Grapes (Featuring Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon)
- Très magnifique (Featuring Tsunami)
- Mau Mau (Featuring Nah Eeto)
- Coonta Kinte (Featuring Zelooperz)
- Rich Black (Featuring Koreatown Oddity)
- One Inna Million (Featuring Lava La Rue)
- Gang On Holiday (Em I Go We?) (Featuring Jeremiah Jae)
- Deer In Headlights (Featuring Danny Brown)
- Hurt Your Soul (Featuring Nate Bone)
- My Own (Featuring Marlowe)
- Cosmosis (Featuring Ben Okri + Skepta)
- There’s No End
