Bix - The North

You might know Bix as the hip hop producer from Toronto who’s worked with such emcees as Ghettosocks or Kool Krys. If so, you think of him as a producer who makes some really fun boom bap and utilizes some great soul samples. If that’s the case, you might not be prepared for the shift in tone on his latest instrumental album, The North. This dark and brooding album is certainly a change from the funky party numbers he’s made with others, but he pulls off the shift in style with ease.

Shad - Melancholy and the Infinite Shadness

How do you know when an emcee is talented? When they drop a short mixtape/EP, and it’s immediately more enjoyable and interesting than 95% than everything you’ve been listening to. That’s exactly what Shad’s just managed to do. The Toronto emcee firmly established himself as a top tier emcee with his outstanding sophomore album, TSOL in 2010. He recently dropped this short little project featuring samples from some of his favorite songs growing up, and what he does in just over eleven minutes is more enjoyable and though provoking than the majority of music that’s been released this year.

LinA - Not Just a Pretty Face

LinA comes to us from Halifax, a city with a deep and unique hip hop history. The former model has been quietly developing her skills on the mic behind the scenes, and has only recently made herself known on stage. Working with J-Bru, who signed her to his Bru-Print label, she drops her debut record, hoping to establish herself as a serious artist. Ideally, I’d like to think that we’ve come far enough that anybody can pick up a mic and they don’t have to justify their appearance and background before we consider them seriously as artists.

Dual Core - All the Things

Dual Core formed several years ago, as a computer programmer and aspiring emcee from Cincinnati named int eighty teamed up with a graphic designer and aspiring hip hop producer from Manchester named c64. Their first album, Zero One, released in 2007, was as nerdcore as could be. They rapped about Star Wars, War Games, MySpace, Lord of the Rings, and so on, with samples to add to the references. It’s fun, but it certainly crutched a bit on the novelty of the references, a complaint that many outside of nerdcore have about the subgenre.

6Fingers + Topkat - Mercury Retrograde

Producer 6Fingers and emcee Topkat, both hailing from the Bay Area in Vallejo, California have both been making music for a few years now. 6Fingers has produced for other Beatrock artists, such as Bambu and Rocky Rivera, but this album marks his official debut as a Beatrock artist, and he brought his most frequent collaborator along for the ride. The two have the kind of chemistry that comes from having known each other for years, and it comes across in the music.

J. Bizness - Flight Plan

The Mello Music Group Instrumental Series begins with an offering by SoCal producer J. Bizness. Bizness had been on his grind for a few years, most notably producing tracks for Little Brother and Canibus. His debut for MMG is a concept album built around the idea of air travel. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot to praise with this release. On the most basic level, his beats just aren’t that interesting or well-developed enough to maintain interest over twenty four tracks.

Mega Ran - Language Arts: Vol. 2

It’s time for the second installment to one of the most ambitious projects of the year: Language Arts. A multiple volume, multi-platform project that includes albums, video games, and comic books, the first volume set the stage for Raheem Jarbo, a teacher struggling to keep attendance up while they fall prey to a violent video game, all while dreaming of starting a hip hop career. In the second volume, things pick up right where we left off.

Adam WarRock, Jesse Dangerously, Mikal kHill, and Tribe One - Fun Razor

With the NOFRIENDS tour launching in September, Adam WarRock, Jesse Dangerously, Mikal kHill, and Tribe One got together to brainstorm a way to raise funds help cover costs. After kicking around some ideas, they settled on making a mixtape where each artist rapped over each other’s beats. It’s a concept that in retrospect seems so obvious and fun, I can’t think of a better way to get fans excited for the tour.

The Record: Contemporary ART and VINYL edited by Trevor Schoonmaker

Media is defined by its symbolic properties and its materiality. The television is at once the gathering site for the Seinfeld finale and that thing you dust or carry in your back pocket. bell hooks’ Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies radically transformed my opinions on identity and cinematic representation, but my secondhand copy is also valuable because the author inscribed a message to the previous owner.

More or Les - Mastication

More or Les, emcee and producer from Toronto and member of the Backburner crew, comes at us with his fourth full length album. As you might guess from the title, the theme here is food. It’s something he’s dabbled with before, titling his last album Brunch With a Vengeance, but that album didn’t adhere as strictly to the theme as Mastication does. Before you dismiss the whole album as a novelty, though, let me assure you that what make the album really interesting and rewarding is how Les works within the self-imposed theme and then manages to break through into bigger issues while still remaining on topic.