DX: Powerful. You have a son. I recall him being the youngest volunteer to plant trees at a local community event in Michigan. Is he following in your footsteps with rhyming also?
Theory: Yeah, Masai is definitely a musical child. He’s been around it all his life. He started in a music class when he was a toddler and will be having his first piano lesson later this month. Masai likes to do his emcee thing, definitely. But he also likes to make music. I could see him being a producer, too. However, ultimately, I want him to do whatever he wants to do. If he wants to go into music, I’ll support him and if he doesn’t, I’ll support him.

If music is art and art is innovation then one is surely to appreciate artistic development in the soulfully-funky sounds of the El Michaels Affair, a band of Brooklyn-based musicians who orchestrate themselves to move with the wind while creating melodic sounds only conceivable through the collective use of instruments.

Known for their contribution to Fallin’ off the Reel (2006) a collection of 7” put out by Truth & Soul Records, a label which Leon Michaels and his partner Jeff Silverman founded in 2003. The album features El Michaels’ rendition of Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” and “Glaciers of Ice”, creating a hot buzz for El Michaels in the world of underground Hip Hop. Two years later, the release of Fallin’ off the Reel Vol. 2 appears, another promised production featuring every 45 single released from Truth & Soul. El Michaels Affair contributes to the poignant gem with four tracks including “PJ’s”, featuring Raekwon. As the buzz for El Michaels continues to increase with their latest remix of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” - as well as their work with Ghostface and Just Blaze - Leon Michaels chops it up with DX to discuss the band’s approach to arrangement, active listening in the underground, and the collaboration that led them to Puerto Rico (complete with a Youtube link below).

HipHopDX: Who is El Michaels Affair?
Leon: It is a collective of musicians that are involved in Truth & Soul Records, started by myself and a bass player, a friend of mine Nick Movshon, who I grew up with and played in a band called The Mighty Imperials.

DX: How many band members are in the Affair?
Leon: Well, when we play live, it’s usually about eight people – eight to ten.

DX: And where did the name come from?
Leon: Well, my last name is Michaels…and originally...I don’t even know how the name started. Originally, we put out a 12” single in 2001; and it was on Soul Fire Records at the time and the head of Soul Fire Records came up with the name.

DX: Truth & Soul is not a typical label. What makes it different?
Leon: Well, the thing about Truth & Soul is that it’s not a traditional music label in a sense that we go out and we find bands to record…more like there’s a group of musicians that are involved, as well as engineers and artists and things of that nature, and all the music really comes from the same source; and then we’ll get singers to come in and…so it’s different projects with several groups of people so there’s El Michaels Affair, there’s Bronx River Parkway which is like a Latin - we went down to Puerto Rico and collaborated with a bunch of older Puerto Rican musicians…and then there’s a band called The Expressions and that’s kind of a Soul, type of thing.

DX: What vision did you and your partner Jeff Silverman have for the label?
Leon: The label is kind of heading in a certain direction just because we’ve been doing a lot of remixes for Major label stuff, which is cool. And then as far as the music goes, we usually just get inspired by some records and it’s never really a set plan as far as where the music’s gonna go. It changes up as it happens.

DX: Fallin’ off the Reel Vol. 2. Some dope joints on there, including the one with Raekwon. How did that partnership first come about?
Leon: Scion’s doing his theories of concert, live bands with hip-hop acts and so they did this stuff with Raekwon. Originally it was supposed to be Slick Rick, but I think he wanted too much money. And we did it with Raekwon; we did one show two years ago - three years ago, in New York. And it went really well so we started putting more shows together and started bringing in more members of Wu-Tang. And then eventually that 12” was originally a promotional-only 12” for Scion that they paid for…so we just put it out. Scion kind of hooked the whole thing up and the relationship was good so we just kept on working together.

DX: How does the band go about arrangement?
Leon: For the most part we’ll have some sort of concept of a record that we’re listening to, that we want to check out - kind of emulating a certain sound. And we’ll get three or four musicians in, including myself and Jeff, and the way we do things is more like building upon the track rather than one person sitting down and composing the track by themselves from start to finish. It’s more of a collective thing.

DX: So there isn’t one person arranging everything?
Leon: Well, I mean, me and Jeff do most of the arranging. Jeff does all the engineering and me and him do the production; and a lot of the arranging as far as the strings and the horns, I’ll do. But the general ideas, the very basic idea, will come as a group thing. Continued on page 4 »