20th anniversary

On 26 March 2021, the band celebrated its debut album’s 20th anniversary with oncoming reissues of their catalogue and teases of non-fungible tokens ; due to its impact on climate change, the latter was met with criticism by various sources and fans—some noting that the act contradicts the environmental themes of Plastic Beach . No non-fungible tokens have since released. The band also announced a boxset, the G Collection, containing six of their studio albums—excluding The Fall —for Record Store Day . On 10 August 2021, Gorillaz debuted three new songs, “Meanwhile” (featuring British rapper Jelani Blackman), “Jimmy Jimmy” (featuring the British rapper AJ Tracey ), and “Déjà Vu” (featuring the Jamaican-British singer Alicaì Harley), during a free concert at the O 2 Arena in London, England exclusively for National Health Service employees and their families. They then performed them again at the subsequent concert open to the public the next day (both of which served as the first live audience concerts of the Song Machine Tour ). These three songs were announced to be tracks from a new EP entitled Meanwhile , with the cover originally published on TikTok .