April 14, 2023

Big Crown

1xLP (Black and Sky Coloured Vinyl)

Glorious Game, the new collaborative release from El Michels Affair and Black Thought, is the culmination of a kind of double renaissance. El Michels Affair started turning heads and garnering acclaim with the 2009 cover album Enter the 37th Chamber, which reimagined Wu-Tang Clan’s signature album. For the next decade, Leon Michels and his group of collaborators produced a few more cover albums, but over the last three years they’ve had a burst of creativity, releasing their “cinematic soul” album Adult Themes in 2020, and the Turkish and Eastern influenced Yeti Season in 2021. Black Thought, in years past best known as the lead MC for The Roots, has himself refound his game, having released the widely heralded Cheat Codes with Danger Mouse last year, jettisoning the trope of late career mediocrity. Perhaps a strange match at first glance, Black Thought holds Michels in great esteem as a producer, and a partnership was established that can make music lovers everywhere feel grateful. El Michels Affair provides a dark, soulful, and sample-heavy (Joni Mitchell, Shabba Ranks, ODB to name a few) backdrop for the veteran MC to hold a mirror to his rise and career. A reflective glance backwards at a lifetime of loss, acceptance, and regret, Glorious Game is two acts at their best; natural, complementary, and never selfish.