These days, Tarriona Ball is best known as “Tank” from New Orleans hip hop group Tank and the Bangas. Back in the day, though, she came up on the slam poetry scene. With touring on hiatus during 2020, and as we all processed our feelings at home, Ball went ahead and did something new, writing her first book of poetry, Vulnerable AF. As a frontwoman, Ball is dynamic and boisterous and just commands your attention on stage as she draws on hip hop and gospel influences.

Andrea Swensson has long been a contributing member of the Minneapolis music scene, whether it be as host of The Local Show on 89.3 The Current or working as Music Editor at the city’s late alt-weekly, City Pages. In 2017, University of Minnesota Press released her book Got To Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound. In 2021, it was rereleased in paperback, now with a new foreword from Jellybean Johnson.

Ever since Fort Worth producer BLKrKRT came on our radar just this past January when he collaborated with Tornup for the album Hologram Zoo Vol. 1: The Crypt, we’ve learned that he’s as prolific as he’s creative. Just this past month, he gave us the album Ancestors, which further cemented his status as one of the most innovative avantgarde electronic composers working today. Apparently, there was so much material recorded for the album, he’s now come right back with a new album, Ancestors II (B-Sides).

You might know him as Dudley Perkins or as Declaime or as both. You might know him from his many solo albums, and you might know him from his albums with Georgia Anne Muldrow. What you might not know is that way back when, he was just a young dude in Oxnard that wanted to sing and rap, and he happened to be friends with a young producer by the name of Madlib, who was just starting to make some waves with a group called Lootpack.

Akron-based artist Floco Torres is more than a decade deep into his career, and he’s been prolific during that time. While it’s been two years since his last full-length album, West Hill, he has been keeping busy with a string of singles and one-off collaborations. Now he’s back with a new full-length done in collaboration with Akron musician Egan Ammerman, better known as Operations, called As We Curve. As We Curve is an interesting album in that the collaboration pushes Torres outside of any sort of typical setting you think for a hip hop album, with Operations coming at the project as a pianist/guitarist that might steer a little more in the indie rock direction, though not exclusively.

New York by way of Philly emcee PremRock has been going strong for about a decade now, whether it be as a solo artist or pairing up with producers like Willie Green or Fresh Kils or forming the group ShrapKnel with Curly Castro. His last release came out just last year when ShrapKnel released their debut self-titled album. Now he’s back with a new solo album, Load Bearing Crow’s Feet.

MELONYX is a duo from Nottingham made up of vocalists Georgia Copeland and Nadia Latoya. They released their first single, “Worth the Wait,” in May of last year, but now they make their debut on Tru Thoughts with their first EP, Black Elixir EP. Sequencing is an underrated aspect of putting a project out into the world. I don’t know how the decisions were made when it came to Black Elixir, but however they came to it, it pays off in a really interesting way.

John Carroll Kirby is a pianist/composer/arranger from Los Angeles that has been working behind the scenes for years, collaborating with everyone form Shabazz Palaces to Blood Orange to Solange. He made his debut on Stones Throw last year with his full-length solo album, My Garden. He’s dropped a few singles since then, but now he’s back with the proper follow up, Septet. For Septet, Kirby is playing keys, but then he enlists the help of Tracy Wannomae and Logan Horne on woodwinds, Nick Mancini on vibraphone, John Paul Maramba on bass, David Leach on percussion, and Deantoni Parks on drums.

Just this past May, North Carolina artist Mikal kHill debuted a new name, vHiktor freeze, when he dropped settle in (chapter 1). It became clear very quickly why he chose to use an alias – this was a new sound. It’s all instrumental, chill downtempo beats. Now he’s come right back with a new EP, settle in (chapter 2). If you told me ten years ago that Mikal kHill was going to drop an instrumental project that had some Babyface influence to the production, I probably would have looked at you sideways.

Just one year ago, a mysterious group from London with virtually no information about themselves made available called Sault got the attention of all the right outlets to spread the good word about their music when they dropped the album Untitled (Black Is). As clever as their marketing (or non-marketing) was, the proof was in the pudding as Sault delivered an ambitious album that blended multiple genres and spoke to all of the pain and resilience of the Black community being felt around the globe at the time.