ASSEMBLE SOUND

People hate year-end lists. Detroiters probably more than most. I’m not sure why; I think they are better than most things on the internet. They either affirm everything you love or hate, or affirm your unspoken suspicion that you have a better sense of what people should love or hate than the ignorant asshole who decided to compile a list about it to share with the world. Either way, year-end lists are self-affirming, and in a world saturated by social media, I welcome any source of self-affirmation that doesn’t look like a bathroom selfie or a desperate status update.

This year-end list is about music. Specifically, Detroit music. It’s also less of a year-end list than a year-start list. The year we’re starting is 2015, and if you’ve been feeling the pulse of the music scene in Detroit recently, you might share my sneaking suspicion that 2015 will be a game-changing year for Detroit music. I’m not sure what exactly “game-changing” means, but there are a bunch of artists across genres in the city who are positioned to put themselves on the national music radar this year. If you are expecting to see names like Danny Brown, Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr, Shigeto, or Dej Loaf here, those names aren’t on this list because they already have an international fan base. They were on last year's non-existent list. The artists here aren’t that big yet.

Here are the 9 Detroit artists who could get there this year, in no particular order:

Detroit Che

It almost doesn’t seem fair to include Detroit Che on this list because I’m compiling it one night after watching her murder the mic on BET’s 106 and Park Backroom. This wasn’t even her first BET appearance in 2014; she showed up Lil’ Mama during her own cypher on the BET Hip Hop awards. Shady Records has already released a remix of their attempted Detroit Anthem, “Detroit vs. Everybody”, and however unnecessary the remix felt, the inclusion of a Detroit Che verse seemed to justify the entire sixteen minute ordeal.   

Detroit Che tops this list and represents my safest pick because her rise feels very inevitable at this point, although it didn’t before her 2014 album “Noah” met and exceed expectations. It’s the unknown nature and speed of her rise that we’ll all bear witness to in 2015. More than simply witness, I hope we’ll support it. She’s a female emcee that raps harder than most of her male counterparts, and while repping herself with bravado, she also does it with humility and an unabashed awareness and compassion for the world around her. She’s an anchor in the Detroit hip-hop/poetry/activism scene, and she’s positioned to share that scene with the music world in 2015.  

 Protomartyr

I think by most measurements Protomartyr may have had the most successful 2014 of any Detroit band. In the spring, the post-punk outfit put out their sophomore effort “Under Color of Official Right,” their first project released via the Seattle-based label Hardly Art. To say it released to great reviews would probably be an understatement. Pitchfork gave it an 8.1 and then wrote so many words about it that you have to scroll on a 13 inch macbook. Stereogum followed suit. This fall they spent an hour in WBEZ’s Chicago studio sharing their story and their music with Sound Opinion, who just listed Under Color Of Official Right as the 2nd best album of 2014 on their own year-end list. Ben Ratliff did the same for the New York Times Top Ten list, which put Protomartyr in the company of Mary J. Blige, an awkward but more-than-acceptable pairing, I think. Spin just added the album to their 2014 Best Albums list as well. There’s a lot more of these, and more coming. I’m not sure Protomartyr cares about any of this stuff, but their 2015 outlook does. There’s a lot of obnoxious boosterism in Detroit right now, and Protomartyr is providing a really welcomed soundtrack that is unapologetically honest in its examination of the personal and political lives we live in the Motor City. It’s an honesty people crave, and Protomartyr is going to find a lot more people to share it with in 2015.

ZelooperZ

According to sources who ask to remain anonymous, if ZelooperZ doesn’t blow-up in 2015, he’ll consider walking on as the starting small forward for the 2016 Pistons. He’s gotta be all of 6’6”, and when he’s bouncing all over the stage that skinny 6’6” frame looks like a solid 6’10”. Yet even that much body can barely contain the energy ZelooperZ brings to everything he does. The 21-year old rapper/painter reps Bruiser Brigade, and his stand-out 2014 album “Help” included features by the Brigade’s unofficial leader and rap heavy hitter, Danny Brown. ZelooperZ, who had a feature with A$AP ROCKY on Brown’s 2013 track Kush Koma, also hit the festival circuit in 2014, at times as an individual artist and at times as an accomplice to Danny Brown. Besides getting coverage from major music blogs like XXL, Pitchfork, and Pigeons and Planes, 2014 also saw ZelooperZ get picked up by Danny Brown’s manager and Shady A&R head, Dart Parker. It was a year of arrival for Z, and now he’s got the music, the presence, and the team to make 2015 his year of ascension. Watch him hit a lot of year-end lists for the best new artists...    

His DJ and Detroit producer Black Noi$e should also probably be on this list, but I guess technically he’s not. Watch for his production to show up behind acts you already love in 2015.

Jamaican Queens

If not professional musicians, than professional tweeters. If you got paid to give zero fucks, they’d be billionaires. I feel little need to write background info about a band whose members have been involved with some of the best music made in Detroit over the last few years, either via the Queens or previous projects. Their synth-laden “trap pop” sound is genre defying, even as we call it “trap pop.” Since their much-lauded (read: “intoxicating” and “orgasmic”) 2013 debut album Wormwood, the Jamaican Queens have been doing whatever they want it seems. They’ve toured Europe and the States, played SXSW, and consistently helped Detroit’s most committed hipsters mourn the gentrification of downtown with illicit house shows. They might be Detroit’s most interesting and talented band, and 2015 will probably be the year we’ll have to learn how to share Ryan Spencer, Adam Pressley, and Ryan Clancy with the rest of the music-loving world. They are set to release a new album this spring amidst a busy touring schedule. Rumor has it that they’ve already got visuals done for each track, including not just videos but a custom video game. What? Exactly. They gave us a sneak peak of the album by releasing the catchy single “Bored + Lazy” in October, which has already racked up over 12,000 soundcloud listens, been remixed by legendary producer Nick Speed and emerging Bruiser Brigade star Dopehead, and has earned the eye of Detroit’s favorite filmmaking duo, The Right Brothers. We know, you knew them before they were cool. As much as you’ll want to keep them to yourselves; tell all your friends. They’ve earned it, and 2015 should be the year they get it.

Gosh Pith

I’m putting them after the Jamaican Queens because the first time I saw them play I asked the person standing next to me if they were the Jamaican Queens “apprentice”. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to read that. The young duo of Joshes (Josh Smith + Josh Freed) are relatively new to the Detroit music scene, having moved to the city from Ann Arbor after graduating from UofM last May, where they apparently fueled much of the house party scene. The Joshes have only put out two tracks as Gosh Pith to-date, which probably makes a 2015 national break-out prediction seem aggressive. It might be, but I don’t think it is. Their two tracks “Waves” and “Smoke Bellow” have a combined 65,000 listens on soundcloud, and were picked up by Pigeons and Planes, Noisey, and Earmilk among many others. They have a committed fan base that recently double-funded a kickstarter campaign Gosh Pith launched to outfit their “family” in branded hoodies. They haven’t even released their finished EP (set to drop early spring), but they already have a sold out show at the Masonic Temple with Griz, Odesza, and Will Sessions. They have built a broad and collaborative creative community around them in Detroit quickly, and rumor is they have a full length album almost completed that will also drop in 2015. Don’t sleep on these kids when you can party with them instead.

Chavis Chandler

He started off 2014 by dropping his mixtape Darkskin Jermaine and The Legend of the Leather Britches on XXL’s The Break. He plans on starting 2015 in a similar fashion, releasing an anticipated new full-length entitled Call Of The Wild. Chandler dropped a single off that project this month, Gang $igns, which features Detroit rapper Icewear Vezzo, who probably would have been on this list last year had this list existed last year. Chavis grew up on 7-Mile on the East Side and has been on the Detroit grind for a minute alongside the likes of Danny Brown (as an early Bruiser Brigade member) and Dej Loaf, who’s taking the rap world by storm as I type these words. He’ll rap toe-to-toe with anyone, but has also learned to embrace and integrate his singing voice, which is as soulful as it is unique. Chandler picked up a new manager in Dro Greindstein from Goliath Artists, who also manages Action Bronson and should bring the necessary industry prowess to his team. If Chavis Chandler’s album exceeds expectations early in the year, as I expect it will, a year of no-nonsense grinding could put him in a very different place by January 2016.  

Dopehead

DOPEHEAD, AKA King Jxxky, had a busy 2014. Besides jumping on a lot of Danny Brown’s touring circuit, including most of Danny’s festival appearances, DOPEHEAD also independently pushed his late 2013 album, Devil’s Heaven, and added features to countless new records released this year. DOPEHEAD appears to have a central role on the highly-anticipated forthcoming Bruiser Brigade group album, Reign Supreme, and Danny Brown’s recently disclosed plan for some sort of indie-rap label in Detroit suggests that 2015 will find DOPEHEAD in the middle of a whirlwind of serious Bruiser activity. He lends an irreplaceable energy, presence, and hustle to the whole Bruiser crew. The swirling momentum around their unique sound and it’s accompanying brand will almost certainly propel DOPEHEAD’s individual projects in 2015. Where that momentum will take DOPEHEAD, I’m not sure, but to leave him off this list just seemed shortsighted.

Tunde Olaniran

Technically Tunde Olaniran is from Flint. But he reps Detroit (and Flint) frequently plays and collaborates in the city, and technicalities can’t hold this list back. People from Detroit would love to claim Tunde, so let’s just do it. In 2014 Tunde released his expectation-defying EP, Yung Archetype, although “expectation defying” is an ironic way to define an album by an artist Pitchfork described as “ready to fuck with your expectations.”  Like a lot of Detroit sounds, Tunde seems unadulterated by industry influence and has consequently produced something that sounds like little else. It’s “genre-defying” if you will. It’s Hip-Hop and Soul and R&B and Electronica and Afrobreat. And it’s none of those. He’s hip enough for Pitchfork, and serious enough for the New York Times. Since releasing Yung Archetype, Tunde has been been sharing his unique aesthetic and surreal liveshow with cities around and outside Michigan. Most artists live shows don’t do their music justice. You could almost say the opposite with Tunde, which isn’t to say his recorded music isn't great; it’s just that his show is that good. He’s working on a full-length album now that is set to drop this spring, and an early preview of a few tracks off that album cemented his place on this list. It’s going to be fire.  

skywlkr

There are usually separate lists for “producers,” but in a city that has consistently put forth some of the most unique and respected production in hip-hop and electronic music, it seems appropriate to have at least one included who will continue to make a name for himself separate from the artists who rap over his work. Enter the Bruiser Brigade’s resident producer and dj, SKYWLKR. In 2013 Complex included him on their list of 25 producers to watch out for, a no-brainer decision after his contributions to Danny Brown’s highly acclaimed 2013 album “Old”. If you were watching out, you would have seen him in 2014, as he spent the year touring the globe with Danny. He has seemingly unlikely collabs with artists like Shigeto, has shipped beats to the likes of Childish Gambino (ft. Chance The Rapper) and Lucki Eck$, and has multiple solo albums out. It’s probably safe to assume he’s the driving production force behind the forthcoming Reign Supreme album, and it’s equally safe to assume that if important people didn’t know about skywlkr beats before, they will after that album drops in 2015. He probably should have been on this list last year, but there was no list last year so his inclusion here is an easy win…

Other artists to watch out for in 2015:

Flint Eastwood - Flint Eastwood picked up some significant shows in 2014, including a big festival appearance at MoPOP, and have invested a lot of time into building their MI fanbase, which looks broad and devoted. Interestingly, FE announced a big change at the end of the year which included swapping out the live band members that support the brilliant song-writing of Seth and Jax Anderson. That songwriting is shifting towards more of the electro-pop sound that drives the Anderson siblings, although it certainly will rock and remain somewhat spaghetti western inspired. Look for their 2015 album, released this spring, to turn some heads nationally.   

Passalacqua - They dropped one of the best 2014 albums in CHURCH, a 7-track collaboration with Seth and Jax Anderson of Flint Eastwood, and they did it with stylish listening party and a sold-out banger at The Detroit Bus Company’s warehouse headquarters. 2015 will be a big year for them, as they have a new full length coming out and are hitting the national tour circuit. That tour could determine a lot for Detroit’s favorite rapping duo. If you haven’t caught them live you aren’t paying attention.   

James Linck - His voice is crazy. His sound is super smooth and sort of fits with a general trajectory of some of the smooth electronic R&B that is making waves. His lyrics are catchy. He can write songs. Vibes for days. He’s got a new album coming out and he’s not really sharing any tracks ahead of time. I love the surprise element. I’d love to see his work catch.  

The Handgrenades - A four track album “52” in 2014 with the brilliantly catchy Wrapped in Plastic. A full length due in 2015 that feels like it needs to catch. It should be highly anticipated.

Doc Waffles - Because a list without Doc Waffles would be a list without the most interesting man in Detroit. He and The Maestro, Eddie Logix, are rumored to have a new project out this spring, and everything they do together is gold. Would love to see him do a tour where he only plays pot shops in Colorado in 2015.

Microphone Phelps - A much anticipated debut album from one of Detroit’s best spitters and ¼ of Cold Men Young drops on Dec 30th, called The Grand Design. He’s got a follow up project in the works with the super-talented Britney Stoney that he might drop in early 2015 as well. Back-to-back new projects is a good look for one of Detroit’s most talented rappers and an artist people have been waiting to get solo work from.  

Valley Hush - A new album that will almost certainly get them well beyond the 100 twitter follower benchmark. I’ve heard one track in a room full of people and we made them roll it back at least five times.

A Benediction

Jeff Milo always kills it on the local music coverage for the Free Press. Here he highlights his most anticipated Detroit shows over the holidays. Because one of them is our own, we'll quote him at length: