Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Leon Michels steers El Michels Affair, an ensemble grounded in R&B that fuses classic groove-driven jazz, soul, funk, rocksteady, Afrobeat, and hip-hop with additional strands. Active since the early 2000s, the group has issued singles and albums primarily through Michels-founded imprints Truth & Soul and Big Crown, alongside earlier releases on Daptone and Fat Beats. Their catalog features the debut Sounding Out the City (2005), the Wu-Tang Clan homages Enter the 37th Chamber (2009) and Return to the 37th Chamber (2017), plus later works such as Adult Themes (2020) and Yeti Season (2021), all appearing alongside side projects that encompass Antibalas, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Michael Leonhart Orchestra, Menahan Street Band, the Expressions, the Decoders, the Arcs, and the Olympians. Michels and the band have also contributed to sessions for Mark Ronson, Dr. John, and Lana Del Rey; their material has been sampled by numerous rap producers, and they joined Roots MC Black Thought for the 2023 album Glorious Game.
During his teenage years, Michels performed with the Mighty Imperials, the Meters-inspired house band for Brooklyn’s Soul Fire label. The group attracted attention on the deep funk revival scene via “Thunder Chicken,” where the then-16-year-old Michels established his signature approach of merging humor and raw feeling through a heavy, unpolished production style. Following an extended stint with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, he launched the more adaptable El Michels Affair, which debuted on Soul Fire in 2002 with the 12-inch “Easy Access” and delivered its first 7-inch, “Detroit Twice,” on Daptone’s Misty subsidiary in 2003. After the original Soul Fire founder transferred his studio and gear to Michels, the musician partnered with Jeff Silverman to create Truth & Soul; the band’s Sounding Out the City, first pressed on Fastlife in 2005, became the label’s inaugural LP with a 2006 reissue.
El Michels Affair’s live support of Raekwon led to a tour alongside the rapper and additional Wu-Tang Clan members. The band simultaneously began a run of instrumental singles reinterpreting Wu-Tang classics and joined Raekwon for a fresh take on “The PJ’s,” originally produced by Pete Rock. These efforts resulted in the group’s second album, Enter the 37th Chamber, issued on Fat Beats in 2009. After several shorter releases, including an Isaac Hayes tribute, and external work highlighted by Michels’ co-writing and co-production of Aloe Blacc’s global pop hit “I Need a Dollar,” El Michels Affair delivered another Wu-inspired collection, Return to the 37th Chamber, on the newly co-founded Big Crown in 2017.
In the ensuing years, Michels took on assorted roles for recordings by Lee Fields & the Expressions, Lady Wray, Charles Bradley, the Carters, and Marco Benevento, among many others. Adult Themes, the band’s fourth LP, emerged in 2020, drawing from film and library music sources; it marked their first set of original material in 15 years. Yeti Season followed in 2021, folding in Turkish and Indian influences, while Ekundayo Inversions presented dubbed-out reworkings of tracks from Liam Bailey’s Michels-produced reggae album Ekundayo. The group then collaborated with Black Thought of the Roots on the hard-hitting Glorious Game, released on Big Crown in 2023.
