New hip-hop project Small Bills is made of New York rapper Elucid (one half of another new hip-hop duo Armand Hammer), and Detroit multi-instrumentalist/producer The Lasso. Also on their debut album 'Don't Play it Straight' are Moor Mother, Fielded, Nosaj, .k, Koncept Jackson, and billy woods. Brooklyn Vegan compares the album to the awesome Armand Hammer debut 'Shrines', but adds "this album is also a beast of its own. It's overall more psychedelic and more chaotic. It has less warm, soulful production than 'Shrines' and more sputtering electronics".

Complex presents (not so new) art rap scene, "a movement that has become one of the most vital things happening in hip-hop today". What these artists from the scene have "in common, more than a sound or a location, is a determination to be original and exist outside of the mainstream... and sound wildly different". The strongest names on the scene are R.A.P. Ferreira, billy woods, Elucid, Quelle Chris, and Armand Hammer (a duo consisting of woods and Elucid).