Music
Rob Collins
Color Me Badd is reforming with plans for new music and live performances after Oklahoma City’s 1990s-era R&B pop group that wanted to “Sex You Up” signed a new management deal earlier this month.

Hip Hop/Rap
Ryan Querbach
Rapper Kendrick Lamar recently released his long-awaited project, “Section.80,” and it seems well worth the wait.

Hip Hop/Rap
Ryan Querbach
To assign adjectives to Shabazz Palaces’ music is a difficult task, but if I had to take a stab at it, I’d call it original, often offbeat, weird and yet, still awesome.

Hip Hop/Rap
Matt Carney
Judging by the ads Warner Bros. Records is running on Pitchfork, the lack of coverage in more conventional rap and hip-hop media outlets, and hired-gun producer Dan Carey’s résumé (Hot Chip, M.I.A., La Roux), the juggernaut label is marketing Theophilus London’s debut LP, “Timez Are Weird These Days,” toward hipsters instead of a more conventional hip-hop audience.

Hip Hop/Rap
Matt Carney
My favorite hip-hop moment from 2011 was when the speed-rap once-superstar Busta Rhymes, now almost 40, resurfaced from the 1990s on Chris Brown’s excellent “Look at Me Now” single, as confident as if he’d been around all this time.

Hip Hop/Rap
Joshua Boydston
If I had to guess what field of medicine Moore-based rapper Double R (of Purple Mouth Bandits) had in mind for Dr. Digital, I’d have to go with psychiatry. Frankly, this album is pretty crazy.

Music
Ryan Querbach
A local R&B group’s members all hail from different states, but they just so happened to come together as students of the University of Central Oklahoma; that’s why they call themselves Meant2B.

Hip Hop/Rap
Joshua Boydston
The last we heard from Moore emcee Jon Tefic (formerly Methotrexate), he had put out the stellar Camelpacks & Battlerapz, a smart full-length that acted as a tribute in equal parts to A Tribe Called Quest and Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Half a year later, Tefic is back, but with producer Shawn C at his side. Meet The Strangers.

Hip Hop/Rap
Ryan Querbach
Philadelphia-hailing rapper Privaledge, who is known more locally for his affiliation with Oklahoma City Thunder superstars Kevin Durant and James Harden, released his new mixtape, JoeWorld, last week. The project, a free online release, does not disappoint. 

Hip Hop/Rap
Ryan Querbach
Kanye West and his G.O.O.D. Music crew have finally dropped their long-awaited compilation album, Cruel Summer. It has its moments, but overall falls short of the high expectations that come with any Kanye project.