He’s Gone was written after the death of Gallab’s father, and delves into the process that follows: grief, memory, faith, family, and learning how to live without someone who defined your world.
“So It Goes” arrives as the first preview of the album. Named after the refrain that follows every death in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, the song draws on the novel’s idea that all moments in time exist simultaneously, with death being only one moment among countless others in which a person is still alive. “After my father died, I found that strangely comforting,” Gallab says. “Maybe being gone doesn’t mean every version of you is gone.”
“I wanted the song to feel like an East African psychedelic fever dream,” he continues. “I asked Mdou Moctar to play the guitar solo, and he took it somewhere wonderfully unexpected. There’s something beautiful about a song about death feeling so full of life.”
The songs blend Sudanese pop, East and West African music, dub, Brazilian and Caribbean influences, 808s and live percussion into one sound. Gallab cites Sade’s elegant economy and D’Angelo’s Voodoo among the record’s touchstones, alongside Erykah Badu, SAULT and contemporary Afrobeats.
While he didn’t initially intend to make an album about grief, “the songs simply became the place where I could begin to understand what had happened,” he says. “Making the record gave me permission to grieve and, eventually, became a kind of catharsis.” Eventually, he understood that something else had happened too: “I thought I was making an album about losing my father. Instead, I started finding him and, ultimately, myself.”
Unlike his previous album We Belong, which was made with several collaborators, He’s Gone sees Gallab play nearly everything himself, as well as recording, producing, engineering and mixing the album. However, there are a select few special guests who appear. Yo-Yo Ma plays cello on the title track alongside horns from Preservation Hall Jazz Band, while Mississippi family gospel group Annie & The Caldwells appear on “After, Forever”.
“Each understands grief in a deeply personal way,” Gallab says. “Their contributions helped give the album’s grief a larger, more universal voice.”
The album begins with the Istirjāʿ, from the Qur’an: “Indeed, to God we belong, and to Him we return” — words of surrender and faith traditionally spoken upon hearing of a death. From there, He’s Gone follows grief as a non-linear journey that can coexist with joy, movement, and love. “It’s less about finding closure,” Gallab says, “and more about learning how to keep going.”
Following the release of the album, Gallab will be bringing the songs to the stage as he tours the UK and Europe in early 2027 with Los Bitchos, including a London show at KOKO on 5 February.
He’s Gone artwork
He’s Gone tracklist
“He’s Gone (feat. Yo-Yo Ma & Preservation Hall Jazz Band)”
“So It Goes (feat. Mdou Moctar)”
“Let Me Know”
“Hold Me”
“River”
“Sunrise”
“Take Your Time”
“Good Grief”
“What Now”
“After, Forever (feat. Annie & The Caldwells)”
