Ethos is an artist from Birmingham that used to perform under the name Lovelight the Messenger. Now, after a couple of years of silence, he has emerged under this new name with a brand new project that will firmly re-establish his presence, The City Wants You Alone. On paper, The City Wants You Alone might not seem like much – just an eight-song release snuck in at the end of the year.

Freecember rolls along, that magical time of when Fake Four puts out shorter free projects from some lesser known artists in the hopes of exposing them to a bigger audience. So far this year we’ve heard from Chief and TheDoomsdayDevice and Anthony Maintain. Now we get a project from Virgil Wolfe, Epoch. Virgil Wolfe is an emcee originally based in Savannah, but they now call Austin home. They also work as part of the Bear Tooth Collective.

Vancouver artist Moka Only has been releasing music since the mid-‘90s. In the mid-‘00s, he started a tradition of releasing a Martian Xmas album every December. Last year, he decided to drop the façade that these are actual Christmas albums, and just called his December release Martian 2019. Now it’s time for Martian 2020. So if these aren’t Christmas albums, what are they? They’re Moka Only albums with a winter vibe to them.

Buffalo artist Che Noir has hit the ground running over the past two years, but she’s taken it to the next level in 2020, dropping the album Juno in February, then making her debut on Mello Music in September when she dropped her collaborative album with Apollo Brown, As God Intended. Now she’s back with one more project just to show you that she can produce as well, After 12.

Raashan Ahmad is an emcee probably best known for his work in the Oakland group Crown City Rockers. In recent years, he’s been based in Santa Fe and working more as a solo artist. However, not that long ago, while he was touring Brazil and France, he kept crossing paths with Chicago emcee Rita J. In doing so, they kept talking about how they should do an album together. Fortunately, this wasn’t just tour talk, and they soon met up at a farm in southern Oregon to work on the album, which is now released as Black Koala.

Myles Bullen is an artist from Portland, Maine, who has been releasing music for the past decade. Before the pandemic hit, back in February, he released an EP with fellow Portland artist Sarah Violette under the name Planetary Access. Now he’s back with a very personal project, Healing Hurts. If you’re not familiar with Bullen, his style might throw you for a loop at first, in the way that he’s combining indie rock, folk, hip hop, and neo-soul into its own thing.

Prowess the Testament is an emcee from D.C. that has been releasing music for about the last five years. Her last EP, 5KYGODD x Air | Apparent, came out last November. Since that time, we’ve been teased by a slew of singles and guest spots throughout 2020, but now we finally get her new full-length album, A Tale of Two Masters. The title of this album should actually be A Tale of Four Masters, since she is balancing life as a mother, a grad student, leading an organization, and, of course, as an artist.

Curta is an emcee that used to be based in Denver, but now calls Chicago home. His last EP, [sic], came out in the summer of 2019. Now he’s back with an all new project, Second Sun. For all of Curta’s career up until this point, he always collaborated in person with his producers. With the pandemic making that reality impossible, he did the next best thing and decided to work with someone he had a long and fruitful relationship with in 4Digit.

Groove School Records is a new label based in London, founded by Reuben J. Green. Green’s vision for Groove School is to be sort of a middleman, a directory where other labels can find their next exciting artist. We will have to wait and see exactly how that will play out, but for right now, we can enjoy their first compilation, Global Vibrations. For Global Vibrations, Green is very much putting this compilation together with the mind of a deejay.

Sarah Violette is an emcee from Portland, Maine that has putting out music for about a decade, first under the name Lady Essence before making the name switch about three years ago. At the end of 2019, we got a release called Scraps that gave us a bunch of odds and ends that she had recorded. Now, at the end of 2020, we get an EP of all new material, Father Time Is Trying To Murder Me.