Black Thought and El Michels Affair built Glorious Game on samples of songs nobody had heard. Producer Leon Michels wrote and recorded original tunes first, then chopped those recordings into hip hop beats, so the 2023 album samples a record collection that existed only in his studio.
The result is a 31-minute, 12-track album released on April 14, 2023, by Big Crown Records, the New York label Michels co-runs. The Roots frontman, born Tariq Trotter, wrote every verse. He called it “one of my most personal projects to date.”
How a Wu-Tang tribute band ended up here
The partnership makes more sense once you trace El Michels Affair’s path. The Brooklyn group started as a cinematic soul band in 2002 and put out its debut album, Sounding Out the City, in 2005. After the band played a concert behind Raekwon, it began working with other Wu-Tang Clan members and recording instrumental covers of their songs for vinyl singles.
Those covers became Enter the 37th Chamber in 2009, a title that winks at the Clan’s 1993 debut. Badiyaa recently looked at how Wu-Tang Clan’s 36 Chambers came out on the same day as A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders, and that record’s long shadow runs straight through Michels’ career. A second tribute, Return to the 37th Chamber, followed in 2017.
So when Black Thought, one of the most respected lyricists of the 1990s generation, wanted a producer who thinks like a crate digger but plays like a session band, Michels was an obvious call.
A timeline of the rollout
- 2020: the pair start work on the album during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- January 11, 2023: Black Thought announces the project and releases “Grateful”, which samples Shabba Ranks’ “Ting-A-Ling”.
- February 14, 2023: “That Girl” arrives as the second single.
- March 6, 2023: the title track, with singer Kirby, comes out.
- March 29, 2023: “I’m Still Somehow”, which credits Joni Mitchell as a writer, is the fourth single.
- April 14, 2023: the full album is released.
The story inside the songs
Black Thought set out to make each track a story from or about his own life, and the album leans on memories of growing up in the Point Breeze neighborhood of South Philadelphia. The phrase “glorious game” refers to the hard-earned advice an older figure passes down, sometimes with a warning attached.
The shape of the record borrows from the stage. A short “Glorious Game (Reprise)” comes near the end, a choice Black Thought linked to musical theater. Big Crown regulars fill out the cast: Lady Wray sings, Brainstory adds production to the title track, and guitarist Paul Spring appears across several songs.
Critics liked what they heard. Seven professional reviews averaged out at 81 out of 100, and it reached No. 24 on the US Top Album Sales chart, No. 15 on the US vinyl albums chart and No. 44 in Germany.
Where it sits now
Three years on, Glorious Game reads as a bridge between two worlds. For Michels, it came after originals such as Adult Themes (2020) and Yeti Season (2021); the band has since released 24 Hr Sports on September 5, 2025, with guests including Clairo and Norah Jones. For Black Thought, it followed his 2022 album Cheat Codes.
The Wu-Tang thread keeps running, too. This week Badiyaa covered how Wu-Tang producer Mathematics teamed with U-God and Nems on the new song 7:Thirty, another sign of how far the Staten Island crew’s sound still travels. Glorious Game, at 31 minutes and 16 seconds of total running time, is one of its most patient echoes.
Further reading
Image: Vbrunophotog, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.
