Wesdaruler is a producer/emcee from Athens, Georgia who is about to release his first full-length album, Ocean Drive, on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records. He took the time during the Secret Stages Festival in Birmingham to talk to us about the new album. Scratched Vinyl: You have the new album coming out, Ocean Drive. Where did the title come from? Wesdaruler: So…I didn’t really plan the album, per se, but when I came up with the songs and had the idea, I was going on a trip to the beach.

Earlier this year, Ceschi announced that he would be releasing three albums, and then retiring the name Ceschi for good. While a lot of us might have understood what that meant in the abstract, it’s a lot more difficult to understand in concrete terms what that would sound like, and what it would mean for an artist and label that a lot of people had invested in over the last decade.

Emcee/producer Black Milk has emerged over the past decade to become one of the most prominent voices in Detroit hip hop, dropping some notable releases along the way, such as Album of the Year, No Poison, No Paradise, and If There’s a Hell Below. His most recent album, Fever, came out a little over a year ago. Now he’s come back with a new EP, DiVE. Over the years, Black Milk has made his mark by combining some really thoughtful and honest lyricism with some truly inventive production that sought to balance old school and new school techniques.

Ben Bada Boom is a producer from Hamburg who has been releasing music since the beginning of the decade. He first came to our attention when he released the collaborative album, Collision, with Australian producer Amin Payne back in 2013. His last album, Meanwhile in Barmbek, came out in 2017. Now he comes back with a new project, Welcome to Boombek (The B-Funk Story). If it wasn’t already clear from the title of the album, the opening track, “Hamburg City Love,” featuring Koolade and Cissalc, will make it perfectly clear that this is Ben Bada Boom’s tribute to the G-Funk era, as they rework “California Love” and make it their own.

The San Antonio group known as Chisme have been on a little bit of a hiatus since Progeny moved to Seattle, but that doesn’t mean that the individual members haven’t kept busy. Progeny worked with the group Heron and released a project with Soultru. Now emcee R.E.L. is making some noise of his own, working with producer Bryan Hamilton to release an EP called Summer Heat. Summer Heat is very appropriately titled, with a sound that feels like some hot Texas nights, the kind that feel like a warm blanket.

Granddad Woolly is an emcee from Atlanta who has been releasing music since the beginning of the decade. Back in 2015, he paired up with Portuguese producer CHIKANO to release an EP called EXPRMNTS I-VI. This was supposed to serve as the introduction to a larger project between the two, but after a while it seemed like it was never going to come. That is, until that magical day when it suddenly appears in your inbox four years later, and now we all have KanoDadda: EXPRMNT VII.

Hermit Kingdom is an Austin-based hip hop collective, consisting of core members Flobama, Philos, and Mugger (there have been others that have come and gone). With member Philos leaving to do a two-year stint with the Peace Corps, the group felt the pressure to finally deliver an official debut album from the collective, which is now here in the form of Tarot. It’s funny how perspective can change things. Just about a year and a half ago, Philos and Flobama released an album together called Love Hugs Drugs, which was a very personal and focused album that was born out of a very tough time in Philos’s life.

Tuxedo is, of course, the pairing of vocalist Mayer Hawthorne and producer Jake One. They first teamed up back in 2015, when they released their self-titled album. They followed that up with Tuxedo II in 2017, which means if you’re following the pattern, it is now time for Tuxedo III. Tuxedo was built around the idea of going back to the days of electro-boogie, R&B, and disco, drawing upon influences like Zapp, Chic, Shalamar, Gap Band, later Kool and the Gang, and others.

Ultra Magnus is an emcee from Toronto who has released two previous albums, The Raw and Magnus Opus, both with DJ SLAM!. Going into his third album, he switches things up and works with one of the busiest producers in Canada, Fresh Kils, to deliver Muziki Mzuri. On the first two albums, Ultra Magnus hinted at a lot of potential, but ultimately both albums came up a little bit short. This can be expected sometimes as an artist figures out who they are and how to make an album in practical terms.

You know Donwill as one half of Tanya Morgan, as well as his work in comedy, deejaying, production, and more. For all of his work within Tanya Morgan and other group projects, it’s been nine years since his last solo album, Don Cusack in High Fidelity. That all changes now as he releases *One Word No Space. In listening to One Word No Space, I can’t help but think back to the time that I read Cash by Johnny Cash.