An Introductory Playlist to Leon Michels

By Riley Watkins 

Music Journalist

In his illustrious twenty-year career, Leon Michels, of upstate New York, has become one of the most influential creators in the music industry. His unique mesh of soul and hip-hop production has made him a sought-after musician as a producer, studio-player, touring accompaniment and curator among other roles. 

Michels’ professional career began in the late 1990s, playing in jazz and funk bands in Brooklyn, New York. After founding and disbanding a number of musical projects, Michels, with the help of Philip Lehman, founded Truth & Soul Records in 2004. Truth and Soul was active as both a record label and production studio, prominently helping produce records such as Aloe Blacc’s 2010 album Good Things and certain tracks on Adele’s 19. 

During his time with Truth & Soul, Michels formed the group El Michels Affair. The band features a rotating cast of players that Michels orchestrates in projects and live performances. Their 2005 debut Sounding Out the City was the first record released via Truth & Soul.  

Soon after El Michels Affair was recruited to be the backing band for Wu-Tang Clan. They have released two Wu-Tang remix albums, Enter the 37th Chamber and Return to the 37th Chamber. El Michels Affair returned to regular releases in 2022 with Yeti Season and has been relatively active ever since. Back in March the band released two singles, “Kodak” and “Mr. Brew”, implying a new album could be on the horizon. 

El Michels affair has also been sampled in a variety of important songs including “Antidote” by Travis Scott and “Brooklyn Baby” by Lana Del Rey. 

After Truth & Soul disbanded in 2016, Michels founded another record label, Big Crown Records. While producing for the label’s talent including Thee Heart Tones and Lee Michaels, the group is also active on YouTube with “Live at Diamond Mind” videos of El Michels Affair backing artists like Black Thought and Piya Malik. 

Now that I’ve given you an introduction to El Michels Affair and Leon Michel’s various other ventures, I want to highlight some of the incredible work he’s done! Check out the playlist I linked to at the top of the article to explore this talented musician’s discography! 

Unathi – El Michels Affair w/ Priya Malik 

 I wanted to specifically acknowledge this El Michels Affair song because, frankly, it blew my mind when I first heard it. Michels flexes his soul and hip-hop fusion muscles as he usually does, but where this song really shines is in the vocal performance by Piya Malik. Malik is an Indian performer, actress and singer. Her vocal tone is impressive both in its expressiveness and cultural richness. There are five other songs on Yeti Season that feature Malik, all of which are a fascinating introduction into Bollywood styles of singing. 

Charm – Clairo 

Around this time last year Freddie Gibbs and Madlib announced a short tour for the 10 year anniversary of their critically acclaimed album Piñata. El Michels Affair acted as the backing band for all three performances. During their performance in New York City at The Greek, Clairo came out to perform the chorus of “Crime Pays” with the group. A mere few weeks later Clairo announced her third studio album Charm. The album ended up featuring front to back production credits from Leon Michels. The album’s pop sensibilities are a different realm from Michels’ previous works. However, he navigates the challenge with true grace producing multiple hits like “Sexy to Someone” and “Juna”. 

So far we’ve discussed Michels’ mastery of soul, pop, r&b, and hip-hop. But what about garage rock and blues-revival? Of course he’s ventured into those as well. The Arcs was formed in 2015 by Dan Auerbach, of The Black Keys fame, and Leon Michels among other members. Their debut album Yours, Dreamily, came out the same year and was a perfect mesh of what both musicians can bring to the table on any given track. “Put a Flower in Your Pocket” is a great example of this, with Auerbach’s iconic vocal tone and the scratchy guitar riff playing throughout the chorus. 

Visions and I Dream of Christmas – Norah Jones 

Michels has been working with Norah Jones for years as one of her go-to horn-players. After working together on Jones’ 2022 Christmas album I Dream of Christmas (That’s right, he can do Christmas music too), the duo started working together on Jones’ 2024 album Visions. There are highlights on both of these projects. “Christmas Calling (Jolly Jones)” is one of the most unique Christmas songs released in recent memory. Although the song shares a name with Valerie Masters’ 1977 release Christmas Calling, and while the drum patterns are pretty similar, Jones changes the lyrics to sing about the typical loneliness of Christmastime when you’re not with family. “Running” is another one of Jones’ better recent releases. The track has Michels lead the way with a driving drum pattern. Jones’ haunting background vocals add a distinct layer to the song’s sonic texture.