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This Philadelphia duo have built an unlikely indie-rap niche by giving their thuggish hip-hop a quasi-spiritual undertone.

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Tronic is an artistic breakthrough for Detroit producer/rapper Black Milk, a Slum Village associate who has toiled in the industry for years (which he explains on the triumphant chipmunk-soul anthem "Long Story Short").

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This perverse morality tale centers on the elaborate efforts of poor, blue-balled "Adam" (a.k.a. producer/rapper/singer 88-Keys, who has made beats for conscious artists like Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and J-Live) to get laid. Ribald detours and high-profile guests abound as he discovers passionate sex ("Stay Up!

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On her fourth album, this Philadelphia single mom who closed the Roots' '90s albums with spoken-word elegies describing gang bangs, prison life, murder, and other urban woes is still delivering her blunt words with "no frills, no fillers, and no additives." Challenging our obsession with machines and the Internet ("Tron") or telling off a former lover ("Thinkin' 'Bout U"), she sings in a sweet

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Thirteen years after his unjustly neglected debut, Pre-Life Crisis, Nashville's Dwight "Count Bass D" Farrell is still a quirky Deep South firebrand. He juices his tunes with R&B flavor and spices his beats with charmingly off-key vocals and stentorian rhymes.

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Roots Manuva has a wicked sense of gallows humor, but his sixth album may be the British hip-hop pioneer's heaviest since 1999's acclaimed debut, Brand New Second Hand.