Summer is always a big season for album releases. One of the major local releases to drop this summer is AKA's debut album, Resurgence. AKA celebrated the release a few weeks ago with a jumping party at the Surreal Ultra Lounge. AKA stays pretty busy doing shows and promoting his music. He keeps his nose to his own grind and doesn't get into the politics and bullshit of the local scene. I appreciate this about him. It's refreshing to see an artist doing it for the right reasons, and not worried about the local bogus pecking order of hip-hop. Resurgence was recorded at Remedy Recording by DJ Phinisey, so ya know it's mixed proper. There are guest verses on the album from Fame Rilla, JC Flow, Mike Drastic and Jon Salt (more on Salt to come in future columns). Ya'll can get the album at all the digital-music sites, or order a physical-copy at itchymetal.com.

Another artist making good use of the summer is J. Bre. A Seattle native, University of Puget Sound graduate and SeaTac scene representer, J. Bre released a refreshing freshman album last year titled Street Signs. This summer J. Bre announced he'd be releasing a new EP titled Revelation. He leaked the first single from the album, "Stuntman". You can download it for free at 206up.com. We'll get into J Bre in more detail in upcoming columns, but Bre has a golden-era, throwback, intelligent-yet-simple flow. He has a smooth baritone and rarely wastes time rapping about normal hip-hop bullshit. Ya will not hear Bre talking ‘bout cars, coke and ho's. He stays in his lane, rapping about his life and where he wants to take it. He's a young and promising MC coming into his own.

Always busy no matter what the season, Logics dropped a new video a few weeks ago with local heavyweight Prometheus Brown (Geologic of Blue Scholars). Watch the video on YouTube. Logics and Geo' hit us with some sharp battle rhymes on this one.

Next week we'll be reviewing the new release from Third Eye Theory, Sorry For the Weight. It's a local compilation and it's good!