Happy Thanksgiving, turkeys. All the colonizing, rape, murder, genocide, football, domestic abuse, green-bean casserole, etc. aside, you should still see the upshot of this would-be day o' plenty: a chance to think of all that you are thankful for. I am particularly thankful for my family, my crew, my city (for real!), and all things pertaining to music; but I'm also deeply grateful for all of you who've been reading this column all this time, everybody who hits me up with feedback, and everybody who's shown me love on the streets (in a noncreepy way). Seriously, though. And, as always, I'm not accepting bribes, but I most certainly am accepting drinks. Cheers.

I'm thankful that Candidt has been doing the Corner for 20 straight months of dope up-and-coming local hiphop at the Rendezvous—and that homegirl at the door of the Jewelbox doesn't sweat me for the fiver anymore. Damn, that was like the hardest door to grease in the whole city! On November 27 at the Corner, shake off the gravy-induced 'itis and catch Indijinis, Soul the Interrogator, Olympian talent Dan Fajans, and proud Tacoma MC EvergreenOne. Evergreen, an entertainingly unpretentious live performer, is working on something with MC/producer Todd Sykes, and the few tracks I've heard are dope—jazzy, sloppy, drunk 253 b-boy shit-talk and half-crooned, for-the-ladies jams.

Yo, so I've been getting hit up by a local group called Sex Panther (originally hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan) for a little while now. I wasn't sure it was gonna be my bag of schwag, especially when I saw that they sold branded thong underwear on their MySpace page. But upon further review, I can fuck with this. Infer-know and Action Jackson are kind of bro-gimmicky (see thong), but the beats are solid and the rhymes funny and well spit. Plus they have a yen for funny movie samples—there's the Army of Darkness–sampling "Boomstick" and the Old School jawn "Scorpion Woman" (incorporating a yelling Bruce Campbell or Will Ferrell into your hook is a plus in my book). If you're out in the West and want to see if they really do work every time (60 percent of the time), they're playing the Skylark (known to many West Side shitbags as the former Legends) on November 28 with Luxury A.K., Taybot, and Three Ninjas.

So those guys are from Grand Rapids, not to be confused with local duo Gran Rapids (who'll be at Hell's Kitchen December 2)—that is, MC/producer Jay Battle and MC/Judd Nelson's illegitimate child Leach. I just got ahold of their debut album, Saturday Mourning, a properly goofy, rowdy set blending house-party-rocking instincts with shit-talking rhymes and slick delivery (I can deal without the double-timing on "Sudden Death," but that's me). Good chemistry, big hooks, and original production are all here—it definitely feels like a freshman set, and they could home in on their thing more, but I look forward to hearing more from these two in the future. I, uh, can't say that about a few of y'all.