Rich Jones is an emcee/vocalist from Chicago who has been putting out music since the early 2010s. Just about a year ago, he gave us the excellent album done with Montana Macks, How Do You Sleep at Night? Since that time, we’ve gotten a couple of singles, but now we get a new EP with producer Killer Kane, Blue Beach. The story behind Blue Beach is that after quarantining in place for over a year, Rich Jones went to stay with his partner’s family on the East Coast for a month.

Kari Faux is an emcee/producer from Little Rock who has been releasing music since 2012. Over the years, she’s appeared on tracks by everyone from Childish Gambino to Chloe x Halle to Open Mike Eagle. Last year, she released a mixtape called Lowkey Superstar. Now signed to Don Giovanni, she has gone back and expanded and polished this project into a new album, Lowkey Superstar (Deluxe). Kari Faux is a hard artist to pin down in a lot of ways, but the one thing you can be sure of is that she is sure of herself.

Eternia is a Toronto emcee who released her first album in 2005, but she had been rapping much longer than that. She released her last full-length album in 2010, At Last, done in collaboration with producer Moss. Since that time, her career has had its ups and downs, but she’s made appearances over the years on other albums, such as Shad’s Flying Colours and A Short Story About War, Apollo Brown’s Grandeur, and Rel McCoy’s A Different Crown.

Gavlyn is an emcee from the San Fernando Valley in California. While she might appear young, she has actually been at this for a minute, with her first release coming over a decade ago. Along the way, she found a musical partner in DJ Hoppa, releasing albums together in 2016 and 2018. Now they continue to build on that foundation with their latest full-length album, Say Less, Love More. From the minute you press play on Say Less, Love More, Gavlyn and Hoppa are taking you on a journey of discovery of the self.

ECID is an emcee/producer originally from Minneapolis, but now based in Brooklyn. He was working at a very steady pace over the 2010s, giving us such projects as Werewolf Hologram, Post Euphoria 1 & 2, Pheromone Heavy, and How to Fake Your Own Death. After that last album in 2017, he relocated to Brooklyn. At the end of that year, there was an EP from him and Louis Logic under the name Toyfriend, but then there was a period of silence as he adjusted to this new phase of his life.

Marcel P. Black is an emcee from Baton Rouge who has been releasing music for over a decade. He has released some singles, remixes, and an EP during the pandemic, but his last full-length album, In Search of the Black Messiah, came out in 2019. Now he’s back with a new full-length to help him make sense of a tumultuous time in his life, Everything iLuv. For this album, Black enlisted the help of producer J Filly, who helps find that balance between some Southern soul-sampling boom bap and some more gritty trap beats.

Devin Burgess is an artist from Cincinnati that has been releasing music since the mid-2010s. He’s been staying busy in 2021, with two projects dropped earlier in the year and a live EP released in June. Now he’s back with a new album, That’s Unfortunate. As Burgess explains, about 80% of this album was written and recorded during quarantine starting in 2020. As you might expect, this time gave Burgess a lot of time to reflect and look inward, and it comes through in the music.

Cyesm is a French musician who has been releasing records for over two decades now. In that time, he’s worked a wide variety of artists and covered everything from classical to jazz to hip hop to electronic music. His most recent project came out in May of this year, New Worlds. Now he’s back with a new project, Beat Baker. One of the fun things about following Cyesm’s career is that you never know which direction he might go in for each project.

Mild High Club is a Chicago-based project led by musician Alexander Brettin. They formed in 2013, making their recording debut in 2015 with the release of their first album, Timeline. This caught the ears of Stones Throw, who then put out their sophomore album, Skiptracing. Since then, there has been a collaborative album with King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard and a couple of 7”s. Now they are finally back with their third album, Going Going Gone.

AWOL One has been a staple of the Los Angeles underground hip hop scene since the ‘90s, working with groups like Shape Shifters and The Cloaks along the way, as well as artists like 2Mex and Factor, just to name a few. He’s also maintained a steady solo career the whole time, with his most recent release, an EP called Can’t Handle Us, coming in October of last year. Now he’s back with a new EP, Flying With Bats.