Things I would’ve been surprised to write a decade ago: I recently heard a new Macklemore song featuring KRS-One and produced by DJ Premier. In it, Mack finds his old backpack (that is to say, is really rapping) and empties it out, spilling out Krylon cans, Krink markers and Boot Camp Clik tapes. Is this a canny move to strengthen his base among the cargo-shorted rap-conservative contingent, the cats who thrive on rap message boards in 2016, who’d rather watch a million Lord Jamar interviews than even hear the words “Same” and “Love” together again? I dunno, but the second that he and Ryan Lewis’s This Unruly Mess I’ve Made is in my iTunes, I’m gonna peep the song with YG, ’cause I have to know exactly how mad to get.

Check in with the self-proclaimed “Northwest visionary spokesman” SpecsWizard and his self-produced Golden Eagle EP—featuring the Seattle icon’s long-awaited return to the microphone. Specs is really our city’s eternal, fundamental underground figure, expertly, unpretentiously wielding homegrown, self-taught styles that predate many known forms (such as MF Doom’s monotone raps and dusty, jittery beats and Open Mike Eagle’s dry wryness). Specs speaks plain and unadorned, calling things what they are. My favorite moment on Eagle is when he puts the kibosh on the self-imposed separation between “rap” and “hiphop” definitively with the hypnotic “Call It Rap.” This is a unique time in the Town rap timeline—instead of merely a wealth of dope new talents, it’s also a time when we’re seeing a couple cornerstone veterans like Specs and Silas Blak reinvigorated, making some of their best work. Wassup, can we get some new Infinite? Framework? Squeek Nutty Bug?

The guy Sol has reemerged as of late, dropping a BitTorrent bundle of 99 songs from his catalog, and then dropping new single “100 Songs,” which features Zilla swagging a bit, playing with punchy cadences, giving nary a “light-skinned, half-Haitian damn” about Da Haters—never going so far as to name Raz Simone (who seemed to make it a personal mission to piss in Sol’s lemonade back in the summertime). Sol’s return The Headspace Traveler arrives March 4, perhaps tidying up the Mess that Mack will have made the week before.

Back to the underground: Monthly local showcase Homeslice (shouts to Liz and Andrew Savoie) is kind of the new version of The Corner (shouts to Candidt)—and always at home in the Crocodile Back Bar. February’s edition is headlined by an ex-Seattle (self) exile, the long-haired king Barfly—whose first book, Winding Up Strangers in Bars, you’ll love, if you like Illuminatus!, the Raiders, and Jameson. With him is Campana (whose band COSMOS kicked ass at the EMP’s Sound Off!), Luna God (whose LGEP is out now), and Son the Rhemic (whose Him Jenson is coming soon). I’ma go ahead and say: Take acid for this one. Good luck out there.