Magna Carda is a hip hop band that formed in Austin almost a decade ago when emcee Megz Kelli and producer/keyboardist Dougie Do paired up and shared a musical vision together. Since that time, they’ve continued to grow and improve with a number of releases and countless live shows under their belt, becoming one of the most exciting hip hop acts in Austin. Their last release came a little over a year ago when they dropped their EP COFFEE TABLE TALK VOL.

Mawik is a producer/skateboarder/visual artist from Mexico. She dropped her first project, INQUEBRANTABLE, back in 2018, and followed that up with Kickflip in May of 2020. Now she continues her growth with her latest project, 1988. When a project is called 1988, there’s certainly a sound that American hip hop fans think of when they start going through the classic albums that came out that year. Well, throw all of those expectations out the window when you listen to Mawik’s instrumental project.

Kenny Segal is a producer from Los Angeles that has been releasing music for over twenty years. In that time, he’s been part of groups like The Kleenrz and The Jefferson Park Boys, and he’s collaborated on albums with the like of billy woods, Serengeti, Hemlock Ernst, and R.A.P. Ferreira. While he released a collection of instrumental material last October, it’s been three years since his last proper solo album, Happy Little Trees.

Linnil is the new name chosen by Birmingham’s Richard Daniel. While performing under the name Richard Daniel, he was known as an emcee and vocalist who gave us such brilliant albums as 2019’s The Lemon Tree Project. However, he made a statement as a producer by working with fellow Birmingham artist Mel.Crozby on his 2020 album iris. Now, with the announcement of the name change, he gives us the first peak at what he might be cooking up as Linnil with the EP Outlines.

Pen Thief Records is a label based in Berlin that is committed to bring you some of the best overlooked underground hip hop releases via cassette and digital releases. Most recently, this has meant experimental projects from the likes of Noblonski, Pasquale, and Kitz Willman. Now they’ve dug a little bit deeper for their latest release from emcee Quiz Ten, Prescription Handbills. Now, there is a very good chance right now that you are asking, “Who is Quiz Ten?

Steve Bryant, aka Cru Jones, aka Cru the Dynamic, aka Cru Drums, is a drummer and producer from Brooklyn. Along with maintaining a solo career, he’s also served as touring drummer for people like Elliott Lipp, Young & Sick, Michna, and Benzos. Two years ago, he made his debut on Young Heavy Souls with the album Cuts. Now he’s back with his second album on the label, Live/Work. It doesn’t take long in listening to Live/Work to understand that Cru is a drummer, as “Wedded” hits you with some crazy rhythms that sound like they were already complex before Cru chopped up the sample and layered things in a such a way that it will take a minute to sink in just exactly what is happening.

Thorts is an emcee from Bunbury, Australia. When you pronounce his stage name in an Australian accent, you’ll understand that his stagename is a play on the word “thoughts.” This why every so often, someone will hit him up online and tell him that he should pair up with an artist by the name of “prayers” just so they could make a project called “thoughts and prayers.” When this never happened organically, his friend and emcee Vaul from Lowlight Plains took it upon himself to temporarily change his name to Prayrz and make an EP with his buddy so that they could make this happen.

Fort Wayne emcee Sankofa kept himself busy during 2020, with three major releases to his name. Never one to rest on his laurels, he’s now back with a new and much darker project, BLKTCHP. For BLKTCHP (pronounced “Black Ketchup”), Sankofa enlisted the help of producer phdbeats, who is able to take that East Coast boom bap that Sankofa usually rocks with and fine tunes it to find that dark, grimy subgenre that emerged around ‘93-‘95, when groups like Wu Tang and Mobb Deep started to pop up and change the game.

Jazz is Dead is a new-ish imprint from Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, launched in March of 2020. The idea behind the label was to get older jazz musicians back in the studio and record all new material with them and try to introduce them to a younger audience. They’ve been releasing these albums at a steady rate, already giving us new projects from Roy Ayers, Marcos Valle, Azymuth, Doug Cairn, and Gary Bartz.

In August of last year, Chino artist Vex Ruffin gave us his full-length album, LiteAce Frequency, an album that paid tribute to his Filipino roots. Now, a little under a year later, we get a remix collection from the album, simply titled LiteAce Frequency Remixes. For the remix collection, only three songs were revisited, “Hinde Naman,” “Mabuhay Boy,” and “Tapang Naman.” When you’ve only got three tracks, you better make them count, so for this project Vex Ruffin handed the keys over to some accomplished Filipino and Filipino American producers, Yung Akó, Pasta Groove, and Tarsius.