Kenny Segal is a producer from Los Angeles that has been a staple of the indie scene for over twenty years. In the past couple of years, he’s been especially busy, producing albums for billy woods, Hemlock Ernst, R.A.P. Ferreira, and Serengeti. Now he’s taking a step back and returning to his instrumental series to give us Kenstrumentals Vol. 4: a lot on my plate. Two things can be certain when listening to Kenstrumentals Vol.

Factor Chandelier is a producer from Saskatoon who has been making music for the better part of two decades, having collaborated over the years with everyone from Myka 9 to Kay the Aquanaut. Most recently, he teamed up with Athens artist Dope Knife for the Kill Factory EP. Now he returns with a full-length solo album, Eastlake. Earlier this year, during the pandemic, Factor had to deal with the added stress of having his studio flood.

Uncle_El is a deejay and producer from Chicago who has been making music for over two decades, often crossing over and blurring the lines between house, electronic, and hip hop music. Just this past October, he gave us an instrumental project+ called Blessings. Now he’s back with a new project with vocalist/emcee A. Billi Free called Blk Mgc Symbl. A. Billi Free came up in Chicago first as a vocalist trained in jazz and choral music, but as she grew up she gravitated towards hip hop, neo-soul, and electronic music.

The Other Guys are the D.C. production duo known for their work with Von Pea, Substantial, Rob Cave, and others, as well as their own solo work. A little over a year ago, they released an EP called Summer in Analog, launching a series of instrumental EPs meant to evoke the sound of the different seasons. Now, you might have thought that the release of Spring in Analog was the conclusion of this series, but The Other Guys had different ideas, releasing another EP, Summer in Analog: Season 2, in August.

Kay the Aquanaut is an emcee from Saskatoon that has been making music for about two decades now. Over those years, his main producer collaborators have been Factor and Maki. His most recent release came this past January with Maki, The Nautical Blue. Now, switching gears just a little bit, he pairs up with a producer from Winnipeg, Kitz Willman, to release a new album, Ancient Fish from the Northwest.

Sujatha Fernandes is a Professor of Political Economy and Sociology at the University of Sydney. She has written a lot over the years, including books like Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation, and contributed to edited collections like Home Girls Make Some Noise! – Hip-Hop Feminism Anthology. Her latest book is The Cuban Hustle: Culture, Politics, Everyday Life. The Cuban Hustle is a compilation of essays and articles, some of which are unique to the book, and others that have previously been published in places like the New York Times, The Nation, and NACLA Report on the Americas.

Chicago emcee Serengeti has certainly had a busy 2020. He returned to his Kenny Dennis character in April with Ajai. He followed that up with Ajai Epilogue in July, and then dropped the wild With Greg From Deerhoof album in October. Now he’s back and once again returning to the story of Kenny Dennis and Ajai in KDXMPC. If Ajai Epilogue was the postscript to the story told on the Ajai album, KDXMPC feels like the prologue to the next chapter in Ajai’s life.

Chico Mann is the alter ego of Marcos Garcia, co-founder of such groups as The Daktaris and Antibalas. A few years back, Mann moved from New York to Los Angeles with the intention of starting an Afrorock band, Here Lies Man. While that project didn’t pan out the way Mann intended, he knew that the material that he had written was worth saving, so he went to work re-arranging the material to fit a slightly different style of music and ensemble.

Zilla Rocca is an artist from Philadelphia who is part of the Wrecking Crew. On top of his solo career, he’s been part of such collaborative projects as Career Crooks with Small Professor and Grift Company with Curly Castro, just to name a couple. For his latest project, he’s teamed up with Vancouver producer Chong Wizard to release a full-length album, Midnight Sons. The nice thing about Midnight Sons is how it works on multiple levels, and rewards based on how much you want to interact with it.

Sons of James is a new group featuring Rob Milton on vocals and DJ Harrison on production. Rob Milton is a vocalist from Atlanta that has been releasing music since 2012. Harrison is a deejay/producer/multi-instrumentalist from Richmond who not only plays keys with Butcher Brown, he also has released some solo material on Stones Throw. Together they are releasing their debut album with Portland label Fresh Selects, Everlasting. For Everlasting, Milton and Harrison drew inspiration from the Soulquarians, the neo-soul/hip hop collective of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s consisting of D’Angelo, Questlove, J Dilla, Erykah Badu, Roy Hargrove, James Poyser, Bilal, Pino Palladino, Q-Tip, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Common.