Che’ Noir is an artist from Buffalo who started her journey four years ago with her debut album, The Thrill of the Hunt. Since that time, she hasn’t looked back, working continuously and honing her skills each step along the way. As she kept grinding, the accolades started coming her way, dropping guest spots with the likes of KOOL G Rap, Planet Asia, and Vic Spencer, just to name a few.

Namir Blade is an artist from Nashville who made his debut on Mello Music in 2020 with the ambitious album, Aphelion’s Traveling Circus. He then followed that up with a collaborative album with L’Orange, Imaginary Everything. Now he’s right back with his first entirely self-produced album on the label, Metropolis. As you might have inferred from the title, Blade is taking inspiration from the 2001 anime of the same name directed by Rintaro, as well as the 1927 Fritz Lang silent film.

Show You Suck is an artist from Chicago, these days best known as one-half of the group Air Credits alongside Hood Internet. However, back in November of 2020, Show You Suck delivered his first self-produced project, Comfy, Cozy, Cardigan, Cutie. Now, with another interim period between Air Credits projects, Show You Suck is back with another self-produced project, 2Comfy, 2Cozy, 2Casual. Show You Suck has described 2Comfy as an album, and you can certainly think of this project this way, but there’s something about the way this project is constructed that makes me think of it more as a mixtape.

GrandAce is an artist from Cincinnati who has been releasing music since the mid-2010s, collaborating with people like Gladwell and Devin Burgess along the way. Most of the time, though, he has worn all of the hats on his solo projects, producing, writing, rapping, and singing. His last such project came in January of this year, when he dropped his EP, Virtual Memory Unit. Now he is back with a prelude EP, Skydeck Suite Collection.

GRAHAM77 might not be a name you know, but there is a chance that you know the French producer under his previous name, Lilea Narrative, or perhaps as one fourth of the electronic production team Cotton Claw. Any way you slice it, after a nice run in the mid-2010s, it’s been a minute since we got a proper project out of him. That all changes now as we get the debut GRAHAM77 release, First of All, on Cascade Records.

700 Bliss is the collaborative project between Moor Mother and Philly producer DJ Haram. They first started working together in 2014, and their first release came in 2018, when they dropped 700 Spa EP. Both artists have been very busy since that time, with multiple albums and different collaborations under their belts. Now things have finally lined up for the two to release their first full-length album, Nothing To Declare.

Nikitch and Kuna Maze are producers based in France and Belgium, respectively. They had both been putting out music as solo artists since the mid-2010s before pairing up for their Mush EP in 2019. They then followed that up with their first full-length album, Débuts, in 2020. Since that time, they’ve worked on different projects, such as Nikitch’s recent EP with Mart One, Jowa, or Kuna Maze’s solo EP, My Fish Is Burning.

Deca is an artist from New York who has been releasing music since the mid-‘00s, establishing himself as a top-tier producer and emcee. Most recently, we heard from him just this past November, when he dropped Source Material, an instrumental album in Def Pressé’s KPM Crate Digger Series. Now he’s back with a proper solo album, Smoking Gun. With Smoking Gun, as he does with most of his projects, Deca is handling production and rhyming duties.

Brycon is a producer from San Francisco who has been releasing music for years. For as long as he’s been around, I don’t know if he’s ever been busier than he has been in 2022, having already collaborated on separate projects with Equipto, Professa Gabel, and Gahn. Not taking a minute to rest, he’s already back with another project, ECU3: Meet Me In The Middle. Back in 2013, Brycon released a beat tape called ECU, a project built off of a trip to Ecuador in which he was guided on his record digging journey by his friend Bad Samta.

Miz Korona is an emcee from Detroit who has been putting out music since the early ‘00s, as well as working as a photographer and activist. We last heard from Korona when she dropped The Virus EP back in April of 2020. Now she’s back with a much more personal project, The Healer and the Heartbreaker. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to turn on a project like The Healer and the Heartbreaker, done with care by a veteran artist, because from the opening seconds of this EP you know that all of the production is going to be top notch and the lyrics are going to have depth.