Black Thought & El Michels Affair Announce Joint Album With New Song ‘Grateful’

Black Thought is set to continue his streak of releasing collaborative albums, this time with El Michels Affair.

Titled Glorious Game, the newly-announced project will see the Roots MC team up with the Brooklyn-based “cinematic soul” group for 12 new tracks, which are set to be released on April 14 via Big Crown Records.

Friends for around 20 years, Black Thought and El Michels Affair founder Leon Michels recorded the album during the lockdown phase of the pandemic after Thought initially reached out to him for beats.

To go with the announcement, the duo shared the first single “Grateful” on Wednesday (January 11). Listen to it below:

Glorious Game will serve as the follow-up to Black Thought’s joint album with Danger Mouse, Cheat Codes, which was released in August 2022. The project peaked at No. 43 on the Billboard 200 chart, with features coming from Raekwon, Joey Bada$$, Russ, MF DOOM, A$AP Rocky, Run The Jewels, Conway The Machine and others.

The critically-acclaimed effort was crowned one of the Best Albums of 2022 by HipHopDX and earned Black Thought a nomination for the Biggest Hip Hop Comeback of the year.

During an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe following its release, the Philly native responded to claims that he’s an “underrated” MC.

“I think over the years I’ve definitely felt like, yeah. I mean, people, everyone says that,” he said at the time. “Everyone I meet, ‘You’re so underrated. You’re so underrated.’ Or in interviews, it’s, ‘How do you feel to be so underrated?’ But yeah, I don’t know.”

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He added: “The people whose opinions matter to me have always properly rated me, so it’s never really been a huge deal for me.”

Black Thought previously released his Sean C-produced debut solo album Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able in 2020, recruiting the likes of Pusha T, Swizz Beatz, Killer Mike and ScHoolboy Q for features. The LP followed the 9th Wonder-produced Streams of Thought, Vol. 1 and Salaam Remi-scored Streams of Thought, Vol. 2, both of which arrived in 2018.

Check out the tracklist for Glorious Game below.

01. Grateful
02. Glorious Game (f. Kirby)
03. I’m Still Somehow
04. Hollow Way
05. Protocol (f. Son Little)
06. The Weather
07. That Girl
08. I Would Never
09. Alone
10. Miracle
11. Glorious Game (Reprise)
12. Alter Ego (f. Brainstory)