Che Noir is an artist from Buffalo who only started releasing music four years ago, but she hit the ground running and had a breakthrough moment in 2020 when she teamed up with Apollo Brown to release …As God Intended on Mello Music Group. She didn’t rest on her laurels, though, with 2022 shaping up to be one of her busiest years to date. In January, she dropped a full-length album, Food For Thought, and then turned around and released an EP, Careful What You Wish For.

Backburner artists Ambeez, aka Ambition, and Uncle Fester have been longtime collaborators and friends. While there has been a lot of great hip hop between the two of them, this particular project has been three years in the making. The wait is finally over, though, as they now present their full-length album, Enjoy. When you have two artists like Ambeez and Fester, with a deep connection going back years and an understanding of who each other are as musicians, you don’t need to overthink things.

Just this past September, we got the premier release from the new Wisconsin-based label, Limited Resources. The idea behind the label is to put out short projects from producers who have been given a set of parameters in which they have to operate. First up to bat was Madison producer Chants, who was given the parameters of 155 bmp only and using Fender Rhodes as his primary source for melody. Now they are back for round two, featuring producer Gator Preserve.

Marlowe is the North Carolina duo consisting of emcee Solemn Brigham and producer L’Orange. They released their first self-titled album back in 2018. They returned for round two in 2020, ensuring everybody that this project wasn’t just a one-off. Now they stay on schedule after two years by releasing Marlowe 3. Sometimes it’s just nice to approach an album without any trepidation, because you know the level of quality and the style of hip hop you’re going to get.

Amerigo Gazaway is a producer who is now based in Zagreb, although he was based in the Bay Area and Nashville before that. More than a decade into releasing music, he has become best known for his mash-up projects, such Fela Soul or The Miseducation of Eunice Waymon. He’s also been working on original production projects along the way, whether it be video game soundtracks or collaborative projects. To that end, he released an instrumental project in 2019 called Endless Sumer, and followed that up with Endless Summer Nights in 2020.

There are few things in life you can depend on, but one thing you can be sure of is getting a new Swamp Thing album each Halloween. The Toronto group made up of Backburner artists Chokeules, Timbuktu, and Savilion have made sure to release a horror/sci-fi-themed hip hop album for eleven straight years now. Last year, they gave us World War Swamp. Now, we’re getting Noise Machine. Swamp Thing has been nothing if not consistent over the years, but there is always room for some variation within their general style of hip hop.

Cakes Da Killa is an artist originally from New Jersey but now based in Brooklyn. He’s been releasing music for over a decade, most notably having a breakthrough in 2016 with the release of the LP Hedonism. Since that time, there have been tours, singles, guest spots, and he appeared on Netflix’s Rhythm & Flow. Now he’s finally back with a new full-length album, Svengali. Even though it’s been six years since Hedonism, you wouldn’t know it once you press play on Svengali.

Fatboi Sharif is an emcee from Rahway, New Jersey who made his debut in 2016 with the album Age of Extinction. Since that time, he’s garnered a following due to his entertaining live shows and creative lyricism. We last heard from him just this past March, when he dropped the project Cyber City Society. Now he’s back with a new LP done in collaboration with producer noface, Preaching in Havana.

Madwreck is a producer from Charlotte who used to be part of the group Dirty Art Club, but he has been working as a solo artist since the mid-2010s. His most recent release came just this past March, when he gave us the EP Fly Pose. Now he’s back with a new project, EMUXII. These days, there are plenty of instrumental beat tapes out there, and most of them are not worth your time.

YaH-Ra is an artist from Los Angeles who has been releasing music for about the last five years. Her last project dropped in February, when she gave us an EP called THE QUEENs GAMBIT. Since then, there have been a couple of singles, but now we get her first full-length album, CALiFORNiCATION: WESTSiDE TALES. For this album, YaH-Ra is working with such producers as Junior Beats, Bruthaz For Life, Iman Omari, Calvin Valentine, iZZNYCE, Nolan, DaeOne, GOLDDIGGA, DirtyDiggs, Polyester the Saint, and Jake PST, as well as co-producing a few tracks herself.