Once upon a time, all the way back in 2019, Ceschi announced his grand plan to release a trio of albums and retire the name “Ceschi” for good. He would then move on to whatever the next phase of his career might be. He released Sad, Fat Luck in April of 2019, and Sans Soleil came in August. Unfortunately, the third album, Bring Us the Head of Francisco False, got delayed due to some logistics, and Ceschi was forced to push back the plan into 2020.

You might know Tarik Robinson better as Teekay, one half of the Calgary hip hop duo Dragonfli empire. As he started to branch out a little over the last couple of years as a solo artist, he realized that there are too many artists going by “Teekay,” so he decided to go back to his birth name and just rock as Tarik. This works out perfectly, as he gives us his most personal project to date, Rotations.

Shubzilla and Bill Beats are an emcee and producer duo that have been repping the nerdcore scene in Seattle for the better part of a decade. Their last full length came in 2019, when they dropped The Kong Quest, an album built around the Donkey Kong series of video games. Now they are back with a tribute to the music of Castlevania, The Belmont Tapes. Much like The Kong Quest, The Belmont Tapes is relying more on the musical side of things to interact with the source material of Castlevania than with Shubzilla on the mic.

Rejoicer is an artist from Tel Aviv who has recently had a run on Stones Throw as a solo artist and as part of the group Apifera, who just released their covers project, 6 Visits, earlier this month. Now Rejoicer returns with a solo project, Voodoo at Home. Recorded between the Stones Throw studios in Los Angeles and Rejoicer’s own studio outside Tel Aviv, Voodoo at Home is more or less a jam session between Rejoicer, who is handling drum programming, sampling, and keyboards, and Nital Hershkovits on keyboards, and Amir Bresler on drums, bass, and sitara.

Haviah Mighty is an emcee from Toronto who first came to prominence with the group The Sorority alongside Keysha Freshh, Lex Leosis, and pHoenix Pagliacci. They released their debut album, Pledge, in 2018. In 2019, Haviah Mighty released her first full length album, 13th Floor, which went on to win the Polaris Prize. Now she’s back with a new mixtape, Stock Exchange. While a project like 13th Floor was ambitious in its style and scope, Stock Exchange is more about straight spittin’, like Haviah Mighty is just in a cypher session.

Sweatson Klank is a producer from Los Angeles who has been making music for over two decades, first under the name TAKE before switching to Sweatson Klank about ten years back. He’s had a busy 2021, with the EP Path of an Empath coming out in January, and the Jewels From the Sun EP coming in June. Now he’s here to close out the year with a third EP, The Off Switch EP.

For years, Nnamdi Ogbannaya was better known as a multi-instrumentalist playing in Chicago indie rock and post rock groups like Nervous Passenger and Mononobody. Starting in 2017, though, when he released his solo album, DROOL, he has been much more in the spotlight as his solo career has taken off. Things went to the next level in 2020, when he released the brilliant BRAT and came right back with Krazy Karl.

Alfred Banks is an emcee from New Orleans that has been going hard for about the last seven years or so, 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. Just this past May, he released an album with Sedrick Avenue called One Guy Standing By Himself. Now he’s back with a new EP, The Range.

AroMa is a 23-year-old non-binary artist from Oakland who made a splash in the city a couple of years ago when they dropped a short film called Zoombug, something of a video EP that was inspired by AroMa’s love of ‘80s music. Now they are back with their official debut EP, Symphony No Harmony. There are plenty of aspiring artists out there with no training that could desperately use access to equipment and guidance and music theory.

Pugs Atomz is a Chicago emcee who has been at this for two decades, rocking with artists like Psalm One and Offwhyte and working as part of groups like The Electric along the way, as well as maintaining a steady solo career. Most recently, he teamed up with producer Inkswel to release the album The Moon in 2020. Now he’s back with a new solo album, Test Drive LP. Pugs Atomz came to the title of this album from his long career and his attitude of trying out different things and seeing what took and what was worth pursuing and working harder at to get right.