A.M. Breakups is a producer formerly based in Brooklyn, now in New Orleans, who has worked in groups like Cult Favorite and We Are Not For Them, as well as a solo artist. Last year, he released an instrumental album by the name of Out of Four Came Many Soldiers. As it turns out, while he was working on the album, he was also meeting a lot of new collaborators, and some of them started to write and record with A.

Awon is an emcee from Newport New, Virginia who has been releasing music for over a decade. His last effort came just about one year ago, when he teamed up with producer Phoniks to release the album, The Actual Proof. Now he comes back with a new solo album, Soulapowa. Even though this is a solo album, Soulapowa is in large part a family affair, since the majority of the album is still produced by longtime partner Phoniks, along with beats from Dread Solo, Mz Boom Bap, SoulChef, Linkrust, and Dugga.

billy woods is a New York emcee who has been carving out his own unique space, whether it be with ELUCID as part of the group Armand Hammer, or as a solo artist releasing such challenging and confrontational albums such as History Will Absolve Me or Today, I Wrote Nothing. On his solo projects, he’s worked with producers such as Blockhead, Willie Green, A.M. Breakups, and Steel Tipped Dove, fellow East Coast artists who can give him a grimy underground sound that matches his delivery.

Kimmortal is a queer non-binary pilipinx artist from Vancouver who has been releasing music for over five years now, initially making a splash with Sincerity back in 2014. Now, Kimmortal takes a big next step in their career with the ambitious album, X Marks the Swirl. Working with producers David Tallarico and Braeden Rangno, X Marks the Swirl is all about looking for love and acceptance when you don’t neatly fit inside any box.

Epic Beard Men is the duo of B. Dolan and Sage Francis. The two have been friends, collaborators, and labelmates for years, and they’ve even used the name before on mixtapes here and there in the past. However, it was about three years ago when they finally began to focus their efforts and finally make and official album together. Just last year, they hinted at bigger things to come when they released their mixtape, Season 1.

The artist known as Quelle Chris has emerged as one of the most ambitious and creative voices in hip hop over the past few years. He certainly swung for the fences with the album he dropped last year with his wife and artist Jean Grae, Everything’s Fine. Now he’s back with another bold and interesting album, Guns. It is no secret that gun violence is a major issue in the United States today.

Emcee Stik Figa recently moved from Topeka to the DFW area, so it is only right that his next release is a collaboration with one of Dallas’s finest producers, Rob Viktum. Together, they have joined forces to release the album All God’s Dangers. Rob Viktum is a veteran with a versatile tool set at his disposal. He can throw down some beats that bang, but he can also get more intimate and soulful with his beats, such as the gospel/hip hop project he did with Krum, Bare Knuckle Gospel.

Ackryte is a producer from Minneapolis who has been making compelling instrumental hip hop for years, along with collaborating with artists such as Rich Garvey. His last solo effort came just last October, when he dropped Hiatus. Now he comes back with another project, Minor. Over the course of his career, Ackryte has been able to separate himself from the rest of the pack of instrumental artists by taking some broad strokes that sound like everyone else, namely jazz and downtempo, but then going off in different directions and handling his compositions with more care and nuance than most producers.

At the beginning of the year, Twin Cities vocalist K.Raydio started a series of releases called “Sync,” which are demo EPs consisting of songs written, produced, and recorded by K.Raydio herself. As March rolls around, we now get the third entry in the series, 3:33. One of the interesting things about this project is that over the course of the year, we get to see artistic growth, experimentation, and development out of K.

The French production duo known as Nikitch & Kuna Maze made their debut on Cascade Records with the EP named Cake just about one year ago. Since that time, we have also gotten a solo EP from Kuna Maze, 2009. Now the two have gotten back together to expand their sound and make their debut on Tru Thoughts with Mush. If Cake was Nikitch & Kuna Maze exploring and figuring out what their sound was, Mush sees them taking that next confident step, where they are both experimenting and firmly planting their feet down.