Surprise Chef is a group from outside of Melbourne who have been putting out music for about the last four years. The quintet last put out in album in 2020, when they dropped All News is Good News. There have been some remixes and singles since then, but now they make their Big Crown debut with their new full-length album, Education & Recreation. Surprise Chef features Lachlan Stuckey on guitar, Jethro Curtin on keys, Carl Lindeberg on bass, Andrew Congues on drums, and Hudson Whitlock on percussion.

Ardamus is an emcee/producer originally from Nashville, but he’s been based in D.C. for quite some time. He’s been putting out music for about two decades now, with a myriad of different projects released at a prolific pace. Two years ago, he linked up with Cold Rhymes to put out an album with Height Keech, Astro Blocks. After releasing a self-produced album on his own Camponography label, Insurance For Your Self Esteem, he is now back on Cold Rhymes to deliver a new full-length album, *Psychedelic City Cowboy $h!

Takuya Kuroda is a trumpeter/producer/songwriter originally from Kobe, Japan, but he’s been based in New York for some time now after initially moving there to study music at New School. Over the last decade, he’s maintained a solo career while also anchoring the horn section of José James’ band. His most recent solo album came in 2020, when he released the ambitious Fly Moon Die Soon. Now he’s back with a new album, Midnight Crisp.

Sleep Sinatra is an artist from Lincoln, Nebraska who has been releasing music since the mid-2010s. He’s been working at a steady pace since then, with 2022 being no exception. He released Brainstormz with KNGKVMI in May, and then released an instrumental project under his producer alias, Sinai. He wasn’t done though, as he’s now back with a new album done in collaboration with producer Ohbliv, Shadow Self. Ohbliv is a producer from Richmond, Virginia who has been releasing music for over a decade, with projects out on Cascade, Fat Beats, and Paxico.

LTF is a producer from Omsk, Russia. He released his first album, Light the Fuse, on Black Milk Music back in 2015. Since that time, he’s developed a reputation for making these cinematic instrumental hip hop records sampling from regional music unfamiliar to a lot of North American and Western European listeners. While the regionality sparked from his roots in Eastern Europe, he never specifically sought to make hip hop that was “cinematic,” that’s just what critics and fans kept telling him over the years.

Tall Black Guy is a producer from Detroit who has been releasing music for about the last fifteen years. He’s released solo albums on First Word, Coalmine, and his own label, as well as producing tracks for artists like Thaione Davis, Skyzoo, and Phonte, just to name a few. His most recent album came out last year when he dropped Airplane Mode. Now he’s back, this time teaming up with emcee Ozay Moore to drop a new album, Of Process and Progression.

Yamin Semali is an artist from Atlanta, formerly of Clan Destined. He’s been working as a solo artist for a while now, with his last album coming in 2020, when he dropped Phantom Feeling. Now he’s teamed up with Full Plate for his latest release, Yamin’s Supreme. Yamin Semali has long been an emcee and producer, but as with most emcees, he doesn’t always get his dues for the beats he’s been laying down.

Short Fuze is best known these days as one half of the group Guillotine Crowns, alongside Uncommon Nasa. In fact, they just released an album, Hills to Die On, this past April. As it turned out, Short Fuze had a lot more to get off of his chest, which resulted in a new solo album, The Painkiller Boutique. He took the time to chat with us about the album and all that went into it - becoming at peace with his past, learning the lessons, finding hip hop, and finding the right friends and collaborators.

Mykki Blanco is an artist who has had a long and winding journey so far, where performance art and music have intersected with a personal journey of self-discovery about gender, sexuality, and identity. What makes Blanco’s journey especially notable is that in 2016, they dropped the album Mykki, which saw a breakthrough moment for Blanco musically, and they garnered a lot of acclaim as a result. They then followed that up in 2020 with the FaltyDL-produced album Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep, which saw Blanco taking a lot of musical risks and expanding their sound.

Few artists have been as busy as Fort Wayne emcee Sankofa in 2022. With solo projects Legacy Materials and BLKTCHP2, that would have already been plenty, but we also got KofaSoCalfragilistic with producer SoCal, Harikumi’s Revenge with Memphis Reigns, and The Beat Shall Inherit the Verse as part of the group The Silversmiths. After all that, he’s still not done, because he has a new release to celebrate the start of the NBA season, The Sonny Vaccaro Years.