El Michels Affair & Black Thought: Glorious Game [BIG CROWN]

Why you'll love it

This Big Crown LP puts a warm, analog-minded soul record on the format it was made for. It reached No. 15 on Billboard's Vinyl Albums chart, and The Philadelphia Inquirer named it the No. 2 album of 2023.

About the album

Most producers dig through old records for samples. Leon Michels skipped that step and wrote the old records himself. Starting in 2020, during the pandemic, he composed and recorded original soul pieces with his El Michels Affair crew, then chopped them into hip hop beats as if he'd found them in a thrift-shop bin. Black Thought, the Philadelphia MC best known as the voice of The Roots, called the result one of his most personal projects to date, and he set out to make every song tell a story from his own life.

"Grateful" opens with a nod to Shabba Ranks' "Ting-A-Ling," the title track brings in Kirby, Son Little turns up on "Protocol" and Brainstory closes things out on "Alter Ego." Big Crown regulars Lady Wray and Paul Spring are in the room too, alongside drummers Homer Steinweiss and Nick Movshon. "Glorious Game (Reprise)" borrows its shape from musical theatre, which suits a record HipHopDX described as a stage-worthy one-person show.

It earned a Metacritic score of 81 and turned up on year-end lists from KCRW and Under the Radar. Twelve songs in a brisk 31 minutes, which in our experience is exactly long enough to flip it, play it again and pretend you were about to do something else.

Also at Kops: more El Michels Affair on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist

Listen

On Big Crown (cat# BC122-LP), the 2023 album.