Nneka is a Nigerian singer/emcee who has been building an international following the past few years. One listen to Soul Is Heavy, and it’s easy to see what the fuss is about. Nneka to writes incredibly smart lyrics to music that seamlessly moves between R&B, hip hop, reggae, Afrobeat, and straight-ahead pop music. She’s got plenty of charisma, and the comparisons to heavyweights like Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu are completely justified.

Wisconsin emcee Milo made a splash last year with his exceptional debut, I wish my brother Rob was here. It introduced us to a young, awkward emcee who had a knack for constructing unusual lines over indie-rock samples. While the style was unique, what made him really special was the smart social commentary and deep emotional confessions contained within those lines. A few months after dropping that release, Milo is right back at, this time using the material of anticon.

Ghost Mutt is a young producer from Brighton. He first caught our attention a little over a year ago with a short EP out on Lowriders Recordings called Sasquatch. It was pretty short, but it certainly held promise of greater things to come. We still don’t have the full length we’re waiting on, but this short four song collection will tide us over in the mean time. Sweat Mode seems to be built on reinventing the disco-funk of the early ‘80s.

There are few artists as difficult to write about as Busdriver. He’s built his career by constantly challenging preconceived notions of what hip hop should sound like and how an emcee should act on stage and deliver rhymes. When he’s at his best, such as his work with producers Nobody or Boom Bip on RoadKillOvercoat, he’s creates hip hop that’s weird and challenging, yet still has a pop sensibility. Teaming up with Belgian producer Loden for his latest album, Beaus$Eros, he once again delivers a record that immediately appeals to the ears.

For all the EPs, mixtapes, and singles that Adam WarRock releases over the internet, it might surprise you that this is just his second full length album. However, after all these releases and the constant touring and building up his fan base, there couldn’t be a better time for him to drop this album. Teaming up with Baltimore producer Vince Vandal, You Dare Call That Thing Human?!? delivers on all the aspects of WarRock that make him appealing - a nice mix of nerd humor, comic book references, battle raps, as well as songs discussing race, regionalism, and showing your sensitive side in hip hop.

Brooklyn-by-way-of-the-Bay rapper/producer K. Flay has been building momentum over the last couple of years through a series of EPs and mixtapes. Some of that attention comes from the fact that a pretty white woman is making hip hop, but that only gets you so far. A pretty face doesn’t get you on a Zion I record, talent does. Looks didn’t teach her to play guitar or make beats or get her through Stanford.

Lee Bannon is an up-and-coming producer from Sacramento. His time seems to be approaching, as his upcoming album, Fantastic Plastic, promises appearances from Inspectah Deck, Del the Funky Homosapien, and yU. Before that, though, we get Gnarlon Bando’s Might Noir, an instrumental album intended to serve as a soundtrack to a fictional film. The album opens with a mysterious short and cryptic phone call, between a man and woman who arrange to meet.

World Around Records is a fairly new record label, run collectively by a group of artists spread out across the country and around the globe. It’s a beautiful arrangement, one that couldn’t have happened twenty years ago, but today a support system is in place for all of these independent artists to continue to work and collaborate. In fact, the mission statement is presented on the opening track by Louis Mackey, “WA Intro,” which features a short spoken piece at the beginning of the song.

K-Murdock was no stranger to video games before teaming up with Mega Ran, his involvement in video game music has certainly increased since they originally teamed up to start making music. Their album Forever Famicom quickly became a classic amongst nerdcore fans, as they made great hip hop out of Nintendo samples. Now, to kick off what’s sure to be another busy year for the producer, he drops Hero Muzik Vol.

While his frequent collaborator K-Murdock gave us an instrumental collection of songs based on Final Fantasy 6, Random revisits his album with Lost Perception based on Final Fantasy 7. The album is called Black Materia: The Remixes, but this isn’t a straight up remix album, in that it doesn’t match up to the original album track by track with different versions. Instead, Mega Ran gives us an assortment of remixes, re-imagined songs, and completely new material in a new sequence.