Minneapolis producer Shrimpnose has been really kicking things into gear over the last couple of years, dropping two EPs in 2018, a collaborative album with vocalist K.Raydio in 2019, and already dropping a full-length album back in May of this year, Before It’s Too Late. He’s not done, though, following that up with another excellent full-length album, A Ghost From a Memory. In 2020, there are a lot of artists who release instrumental downtempo albums, and a lot of them are perfectly fine, but kind of forgettable.

The Microphone Misfitz are a quintet from Chicago, consisting of D-Nick, Mel L., Ray of Light, Kin Solo, and Jet 9. Over the past decade-plus, they’ve been coming together to celebrate their love of hip hop culture in its entirety at the same time they’ve been celebrating their love of anime and comic books. Most recently, they continued their ongoing saga with Escape From Babylon Vol. 4, which came out in fall of last year.

Sinitus Tempo is a producer from Mount Ranier, Maryland who has been releasing music at a steady pace for about a decade. Nothing about 2020 has slowed down his production, either. If anything, it has increased it. We’ve already got three projects from him already this year, with the latest, Kuroi Yume, coming just about a month ago. Now he’s back once again with another project, an EP called AME.

Mecca:83 is a producer from Manchester that has been going strong for over a decade, first under the name Rise before settling on his current name. Just this past May, we got a throwback project from him called NinetyFour, which was inspired by the hip hop of 1994. Now he’s back with a completely different project, Quiet Moments. At this point in Mecca:83’s life, it can be hard to find some alone time to create music, with parenting and work filling his days.

J.Lately is a Bay Area emcee who has distinguished himself over the last few years by collaborating with artists such as Deuce Eclipse, as well as releasing excellent solo material as well. Just about a year ago, he dropped his best album to date, Tuesday. Now he’s returned with a new project, Campfire EP. In a lot of ways, Campfire EP sounds like a continuation of Tuesday, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Sareem Poems and Newselph are a couple of hip hop veterans from Michigan and Alberta, Canada, respectively. Not quite a year ago, they teamed up to release the album 88 to Now. The results where so good and the chemistry so natural, it only made sense for them to run things back and do it all over again, resulting in their new full-length album, The Art of Living. The beauty of an album like The Art of Living is in its simplicity.

Kuna Maze is a French producer now living in Belgium who has been putting out music for about the last five years, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with fellow producer Nikitch. It was only a month ago that he and Nikitch released their first full-length album together, Débuts. Kuna Maze wasn’t done creating, though, because he’s come right back with a new solo EP, Backward EP. If you’ve been following his career, you know that two of Kuna Maze’s biggest influences are the Low End Theory scene in Los Angeles, and the post-dubstep scene in London.

Last summer, London artist Bryony Jarman-Pinto released her debut album, Cage and Aviary, which was an incredibly strong effort that established her as a premier jazz and R&B vocalist. Following the release of that album, Jarman-Pinto was invited to play an “as-live” session at the Fish Factory Studios in London. This performance is now captured on the Fish Factory Sessions EP. The Fish Factory Studios were built in London about twenty years ago by Italian jazz drummer Antonio Feola, which provides the ideal setting for Jarman-Pinto and company to record, where they are able to capture the live energy without losing any fidelity.

Jack Vaul is an emcee from Adelaide, Australia. Just this past March and April, we got a pair of EPs from Vaul’s project Lowlight Plains, a collaboration with producer Wakemare. Now Vaul is back with a solo project, StarHeartSkull. For StarHeartSkull, the majority of the tracks are being produced by Bastian Bucks, along with a couple more tracks produced by Dansonn Beats, Nonjuror, and evilkuff. While Lowlight Plains often ventured into an aggressive industrial style of hip hop, things are a bit more straightforward in the hip hop vein on this project.

John Hastings, aka RUMTUM, is a visual artist and producer originally from Cleveland but now resides in Denver. He has been putting out music since the early 2010s, but it’s actually been four years since his last album, Morá Tugá. Now he’s come back and teamed up with Bastard Jazz to release his new EP, Mirage. There are a lot of instrumental hip hop and electronic releases these days, and there has become a gap over the years between those that are just content to make some fun beats, and those that know how to write songs.