Rhys Langston is an emcee/producer from Los Angeles who has been releasing music for about the last five years, most notably dropping his full-length album, Aggressively Ethnically Ambiguous in 2017. Earlier this year, he released an EP called Master Fader on Speed Dial. Now he comes back with another EP, the T.C. Walsh Suite. the T.C. Walsh Suite is a unique project in a few ways, most notably that it has also been released as a visual EP, which was directed and edited by Charlie Martin and Piers Dennis.

Anthony Maintain is a producer/emcee who originally got started in Boston over a decade ago, and then moved to Austin and helped play a part in the rise of the hip hop scene there, especially the beat scene, releasing the 2013 instrumental album The Elephant Race. Since that time, he relocated once again, this time to rural Maine. Now, after a six year hiatus, he finally returns with a new album, Plugging Holes in the Same Leaky Boat.

L’Orange is a producer from North Carolina who has been going strong since the beginning of the decade. Over the course of his career, he’s released a few solo albums, while also working with emcees such as Mr. Lif, Kool Keith, and Stik Figa, just to name a few. Another artist he worked with was Chicago emcee Jeremiah Jae, when they came together in 2015 to release The Night Took Us In Like Family.

It’s been two years since we last heard form Philly producer Hectic Zeniths, when he dropped layercakes remastered. Since that time, he’s been moving toward making sample-free compositions. Before he dropped a big project in that vein, he decided that he wanted to do one more sample-based beat tape. In looking for inspiration, Hectic Zeniths decided to combine his passion for criminal justice reform with his music. The result is a fundraiser beat tape, A Soundtrack For Real Justice: A Fundraiser For The Philadelphia Community Bail Fund.

Vacationer started in at the beginning of this decade in a different form, with Philly musician Ken Vasoli wanting to leave his punk/emo roots behind and start exploring electronic music. He got paired up with some like minded musicians, and began making some dreamy electro-pop, starting with their 2011 EP. After their 2014 album, Relief, Vasoli moved away from writing with fellow band members Matthew Young and Grant Wheeler and started to really study songwriting and production techniques on his own.

MaLLy is an emcee from Minneapolis who has been going strong since 2007. Despite the fact that he’s received acclaim and gone on tour with the likes of Brother Ali, he still manages to fly somewhat under the radar outside of the Midwest. Whatever the reason, MaLLy just keeps plugging away and doing what he does, in this case releasing an album about turning 30, The Journey to a Smile.

At the beginning of the year, Minneapolis artist K.Raydio released the first of what she called her “Sync” series of EPs, 1:11. The idea behind this series was that K.Raydio was releasing demos in which she produced, wrote, sang, and recorded everything herself. This series came after a period of relative silence, which she attributes in large part to her perfectionism. However, she made a New Years resolution with herself to stop thinking so much, clear the palette, and just put it out there.

Juju Rogers is an emcee/producer/multi-instrumentalist with a bit of a unique backstory. He was born in Germany to an African American GI from New Orleans and an Austrian/German mother. He was raised in Schweinfurt, Germany, a place in the southern portion of the country with a lot of U.S. troops are stationed, so he really grew up being exposed somewhat equally to American and German culture. His father in particular exposed him to the rich musical traditions of New Orleans, and he first started playing trumpet as a teenager.

North Carolina emcee SkyBlew has been going strong since the beginning of the decade, collaborating along the way with people like SublimeCloud and DJ Remei, just to name a couple. Four years ago, he teamed up with a producer from Charlotte named Scottie Royal to release an album called The Royal Blue Reverie. Now they’ve finally gotten back together for round two, The Royal Blue Eccentrics. The first thing that will hit you about The Royal Blue Eccentrics is just what incredible chemistry these two artists have when they work together.

Five Steez is an emcee from Kingston who has been going strong for about a decade. Just earlier this year, we got an album from him and Kingston producer Mordecai called Love N Art. Now he comes right back with a new EP he made with French producer J-Zen, Pantone. One of the ways in which Five Steez has stood out in his career is that instead of looking towards dub, dancehall, and other Jamaican styles of music you might expect from an artist from Kingston, he chose to look towards the East Coast boom bap of the early ‘90s, which he found spoke to him.