Factor Chandelier is a Saskatoon-based producer who has been releasing music for nearly two decades now. Over the years, he’s worked with everyone from AWOL ONE to Myka 9 to Kay the Aquanaut to Def3 to Ceschi, just name to a few. He’s also kept up a steady solo career, with stellar albums to his name such as Woke Up Alone and Factoria. His last full-length album, Wisdom Teeth, came out two years ago.

Six years ago, Rapperchicks was formed in Chicago by Angel Davanport and Henny B, with Psalm One joining shortly after. There were a few members that came and went in the following years. Some of those splits were professional in nature, some were personal and messy, but one was tragic, which happened in 2018 when Henny B passed away in March. Now that Psalm One and Angel have had enough time to process things and figure out what to do, they have officially announced the end of an era, retiring the name Rapperchicks and reforming as a duo named BIG $ILKY.

Portland, Oregon artist Lucas Dix has been part of a lot of different projects under different names over the years, whether it be Claude Six, BCxLD, R4PC4MP, or Jellyfish Brigade, just to name a few. Way back when, we he first moved to Oregon from Wisconsin as a young man, he did so with friend and collaborator Gavin Theory. Together they performed under the name of Hives Inquiry Squad. Unfortunately, their window of friendship and music was tragically cut short when Theory passed away in 2012.

Damu the Fudgemunk is a producer from D.C. who has been releasing music for over a decade. In recent years, he’s produced albums with the likes of Insight, Flex Matthews, and Blu. For his most recent project, he turns to former Panacea frontman Raw Poetic for Moment of Change. If you’ve been following Raw Poetic’s solo career, you know that in recent years, he’s been really experimenting and expanding his sound on albums like Gulliver, Hemlock, and Paging Mother Earth.

Tanya Morgan is of course the New York duo of Von Pea and Donwill, who have been making music together for about fifteen years. Last year saw them busy as solo artists, with Donwill releasing his album One Word No Space and Von Pea releasing City For Sale. While they’ve been working together this whole time on each other’s albums and other projects, it’s actually been three years since the last official Tanya Morgan release, YGWY$4.

Aesop Rock has been part of all sorts of projects in his long and varied career, both as emcee and producer, whether it be as a solo artist or as part of a group like Malibu Ken or The Uncluded, or scoring a movie like Bushwick. Now he can add video game composer to that list, as he now presents Music From The Game Freedom Finger. Not that long ago, Aesop Rock was approached by Wide Right Interactive to make some music for an absurd space shooter game called Freedom Finger.

These days, Mobile artist See’J Foster might be best known for being one third of the dynamic group known as Basshead Jazz alongside Ottie James and Sidney Vadale. However, just a few years back he was trying to make it on his own as a solo artist, even moving to New York to shoot his shot. Life has a way of throwing curveballs at you, though, and after coming to the realization that he might be better served moving back home and building in Mobile, forming the aforementioned group and throwing shows, he might have thought he had a feeling for what was on the horizon.

Sole has had a long career and varied career, one that in the past couple of years has seen him move to Maine, have kids, and focus on farming, along with working on his podcast. This would be enough to keep a lot of people occupied and put the music on the back burner, but not Sole. Just last fall, we got a third full length album from him and DJ Pain 1, No God Nor Country.

Moodie Black is the now Los Angeles-based noise rap outfit that has been carving out their own niche for over a decade now. In 2018, they released their first album since emcee/producer K-Death came out as trans, Lucas Acid. Since that time, they’ve released a few EPs and produced for some other artists such as Chris Conde. Now they are delivering their first full-length since then, Fuzz. On Lucas Acid, there were a few stylistic shifts, mostly with the way the vocals were recorded and mixed, making them clearer and easier to understand.

Chicago emcee Serengeti has had a long and interesting career that has seen him collaborate with artists like Open Mike Eagle, Why?, Sufjan Stevens, and Son Lux, just to name a few. He’s also had a fascinating solo career, including the long-running arc of albums about his alter ego, Kenny Dennis. In 2018, he gave us what we thought was the last Kenny Dennis album, 6e. Kenny’s not dead yet, though, as he comes back on Serengeti’s new album, AJAI.