Mother Nature is the Chicago duo of emcees Klevah and TRUTH. They have been releasing music since 2016, but they made a big step forward last year when they released the album SZNZ with producer Boathouse. Now they are back with a different vibe, releasing a new EP with Chicago producer Renzell, Nature’s World. If SZNZ was Mother Nature’s big statement announcing themselves to the national hip hop scene, Nature’s World is them taking a step back and reflecting on the world around them.

The Bakarak Brothers are the duo of producers from the Cincinnati/Dayton area, Ben-E and Burnt. One of the most notable recent projects they worked on was Sankofa’s 2021 release, The Most Delicious Gold, which featured Burnt Bakarak on all of the beats, and Ben-E coming through with the assist on the last track of the album. Their most recent venture together began with the purchase of a stack of vinyl from a Russian collector on the internet.

More or Les is a emcee/producer/deejay from Toronto, and part of the gigantic Backburner Crew. While we just heard from him on the latest Backburner album, Continuum, his last solo project came last fall, when he dropped his Post Human EP. Now he’s back with a new beat tape inspire by Cowboy Bebop, Beats for Bounty Hunters. If you’ve ever wondered what the key to making a good nerdcore project is, look no further than Beats for Bounty Hunters.

Criibaby is a relatively new artist from San Francisco. They released their first EP, Love Songs For Everyone, in 2020. The queer neo-soul/lo-fi act was well-received, and this led to them joining up with Friends of Friends, who now release Criibaby’s new EP, crii. There are several reasons to like crii EP, but first and foremost is the way that Criibaby is crafting these soulful and gentle songs with great grooves to them.

Yarni is a producer/multi-instrumentalist from Sheffield who released his first album five years ago. In that time, he’s moved from just being a house/techno producer to someone who moves and expands their sound with each project. He did this when he dropped his last album, Boro, released about a year ago, which saw him work with local jazz musicians and also incorporated some Japanese influence after spending some time there. Now he’s back with a new album that goes in different directions, Pigna.

Alfred Banks is an emcee from New Orleans that has been going hard the mid -2010s, working with artists like Mega Ran, Marcel P. Black, and The Soul Rebels along the way, as well as touring and releasing solo material at a steady clip. Last November, he released an EP called The Range. Now he’s back with the sequel, The Range 2. Sometimes you don’t need to overthink the title of a project.

Athens artist Linqua Franqa wears a lot of different hats these days, whether it be the freshly earned PhD, their day job as a County Commisioner, or a new parent, but amdist all this, they found the time to finally release their sophomore album, Bellringer. We were fortunate enough to catch up with Linqua Franqa and DJ Reindeer games, who produced the album, after playing an album release show in Birmingham, where we talked about the music, mental health, the life changes, and letting everyone know that there is gayness afoot.

Chuckie Campbell is an artist based in Buffalo who has been releasing music for over a decade, and he’s been consistently touring with a live band throughout that time. Most recently, we heard from him back in 2020, when he delivered an EP called Curious Incidents in Cancel Culture. Now he has teamed up with Bay Area artist OneWerd to deliver a new EP, Shadows Resembling God. If you are familiar with the catalogues of these two artists, Shadows Resembling God sounds exactly like you would imagine it would, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Just last year, Uncommon Music re-released Masai Bey’s 2006 album, The Panacea Goldmind. A gem from earlier in their catalogue that didn’t find it’s proper audience at the time, Uncommon figured it was time that people gave Masai Bey his respect that was due. With that done, they’ve now gone back and re-released his other 2006 album, originally out on Raptivism, Natural Magic Music. For those that don’t know, Masai Bey was part of the NYC underground crew known as The Weathermen, alongside Cage, El-P, Yak Ballz, Breeze Brewin, Camu Tao, Vast Aire, and a few others.

At the beginning of the year, before Birmingham hip hop group Nerves Baddington released their epic micro/macro double album, emcee/producer inkline caught COVID and was stuck at home by his lonesome quarantining. Like any artist would do, he used that time to write and record a handful of new songs. With the new album already in the pipelines, Nerves Baddington decided to sit on the material. That is, until now, which now comes to us in the form of an EP called Fever Memes.