El Michels Affair join Ahemaa Nwomkro on the Ghana-recorded «Oh Medaase!»
Leon Michels releases Oh Medaase! with Ghanaian performers Ahemaa Nwomkro in a collaborative funk single.
A recording can acquire an entirely new identity when it travels. Leon Michels has shared «Oh Medaase!», a new El Michels Affair single featuring Ghanaian performers Ahemaa Nwomkro. Released on 28 October 2026, the song began with Michels sending material to his longtime friend Max Weissenfeldt, who had a recording studio in Ghana at the time.
Weissenfeldt connected the track with local vocal talent, resulting in a collaboration designed for the dance floor. That route from one studio to another is important: this was not simply a guest credit attached at the end of a production, but an arrangement that developed through the participation of musicians based in a different musical environment.
Across studios, not across labels
El Michels Affair’s approach has always involved reshaping familiar musical ingredients. In «Oh Medaase!», the rhythmic foundations of funk become a meeting point for the production of Michels and the vocal contribution of Ahemaa Nwomkro. The official announcement gives limited information about the precise instrumentation, so it is more useful to focus on the documented collaboration than invent production details.
A producer with a wide musical vocabulary
Michels has built his career across classic soul, breakbeat culture and modern recordings. He is also co-founder of Big Crown Records, launched with Danny Akalepse in 2016, and has worked with artists including Norah Jones, Black Thought, Clairo and Kali Uchis. El Michels Affair is the platform through which much of that interest in groove and texture comes together.
Rather than preserve the past as a museum piece, Michels treats vintage musical languages as material that can take on new forms when they enter a different setting. This single provides another example of that method.
A connection to Big Crown’s anniversary
«Oh Medaase!» also appears on a special seven-inch release accompanying a Wax Poetics publication marking ten years of Big Crown Records, backed with Dave Guy’s «Here Tomorrow, Gone Today». It connects the new digital single with the label’s broader record-collecting culture.
The interest of the track lies in its shared authorship and the way a studio exchange became music intended for communal listening. Listen to «Oh Medaase!» · Watch the video.