流麗なシネマティックソウルにブラック・ソート(ザ・ルーツ)のラップが最高にクール!!
大人気レーベルBig Crownから、同レーベル主宰のレオン・ミシェルズ率いるシネマティックソウルバンド、エル・ミシェルズ・アフェアーとブラック・ソート(ザ・ルーツ)の共作がリリース!エル・ミシェルズ・アフェアーの特徴的なバンドサウンドであるサウンドトラックのような流麗でストーリーを想起させるシネマティックソウルが、ブラック・ソートのスマートなライミングとベストマッチ!ブラック・ソートのリリシストとしての実力が存分に発揮されており、ザ・ルーツとはまた違ったエル・ミシェルズ・アフェアー独特のソウルテイストが心地良い作品に仕上がっています!またタイトル曲「Glorious Game」のフックを歌唱している女性シンガーは多くの大物アーティストのソングライティングを手掛けているKirby(カービー)という点も要注目!

タワーレコード （2023/05/19）

Black Thought contacted Leon Michels in 2020 -- the year the Roots MC issued Streams of Thought, Vol. 3 -- with hopes of receiving tracks to help keep his pen sharp. Rather than answer with a fresh batch of the distressed soul and funk instrumentals for which his El Michels Affair is known, bandleader and musician Michels challenged himself by combining live instrumentation with sampling, sourcing both his collection and purpose-composed songs with additional newly played elements on some cuts from Affair associates and Brainstory, a like-minded L.A. trio with releases on his Big Crown label. Glorious Game therefore sounds a lot more chopped and looped than any other El Michaels Affair release, and the supplemental voices are likewise ghostlier, excepting those of featured singers Kirby and Son Little. Opener "Grateful" immediately differentiates this from earlier EMA sessions by taking Shabba Ranks "Ting-a-Ling" from the dancehall to the playground with the gruff voice of Thought coursing through churning drums, lancing synthesizer bass, and trilling flute. Turkish psych, vintage funk, and Joni Mitchell are put to variable use in other songs that alternately rumble, gnash, and float. Some songs come across as organic as anything from Michels past. Whatever the method employed, all the productions are worthy of the hard-boiled South Philly griot. Glorious Game does not dilute the Black Thought catalog, either. Thought switches subjects and vantage points with typical ease and is almost as piercing throughout as he was on Cheat Codes. "Grateful" and "Hollow Way" are street scenes drawn with freehand straight lines in dark gray. "The Weather" and "Miracle" could be chapters from his memoir -- day-to-day life and young love recalled with decor, scents, and mixtape contents described in forensic detail. While Thought remains unrelentingly stern in his delivery, his rhymes remain packed with comic references and imagery contradicting his improper classification as one of hip-hops most sullen and humorless MCs. "Protocol" goes straight to the top of notable rap tracks that allude to Mork & Mindy. "Im Still Somehow" almost tops the Roots "Doin It Again" for tracks mentioning Phyllis Hyman, rhymed here with what sounds like "Philacybin" (instead of psylocibin). The funniest visual conjured by Thought occurs in "Alter Ego," a coasting closer where the protagonist takes a close look in the mirror, reckoning with the moment "When your conscience kick you in the ass like a chorus line." ~ Andy Kellman

Rovi