We here at the Phoenix have been tracking the progress of Corin Tucker's first post-Sleater-Kinney solo album very closely. Now we have our first actual taste of 1,000 Years, her forthcoming Kill Rock Stars release. It's called "Riley" "Doubt," and while it's definitely not the return of Sleater-Kinney, it still succeeds on its own merits.

When she’s not drawing blood at Mass General, Lady Repo is pouring her own out onto paper. Born Ami Nata — or Queen Mother in Senegalese — the rapper-turned-nursing-aid is as real as they come. Repo cuts into her past like a surgeon with an honesty akin to that of Beanie Sigel. “I don’t know how to water myself down.

If Sarah Palin is a bulldog with lipstick — or whatever that moron called herself — Sheek is a rottweiler in heels posing as a poodle. The girl’s girl from Dorchester may giggle between songs, but when she barks, she barks big. Marking her territory all over Boston, Sheek has performed in most of the major venues and earned radio burn on all the local hip-hop stations.

It’s 6 am on a Sunday morning when Serge Didenko picks me up for a photo shoot, and he’s as bright-eyed as Homer Simpson at a pancake breakfast. At the shoot, he’s jumping over fences and bouncing around the Belmont High School football field. “I’m kind of crazy,” he says, cracking a smile. He’s not kidding.

When Young Don rocked the Fletcher Middle School in Cambridge in eighth grade, his best friend, Chris, soon to become Chief C, wasn’t about to let him get all the attention. The two have been rapping together ever since. Their first mixtape as Certified G’z, Fly Boyz, was “about a whole lot of nothing,” says Don, who recently finished a one-year prison sentence.

It’s a slow, hot Sunday afternoon in Jamaica Plain when I meet the Urban Nerdz by the Stony Brook station. Bouffard Malory keeps jumping up and screaming at the sight of every passing bumble bee; Kay Special alternates between sitting and standing every few minutes; Ace BooGie casually places one leg in the air.

Concep sits in the corner of the Orleans bar and restaurant in Somerville (where I’ve been a waitress for more than two years) on nights when his brother Derrick works the door. Mostly, he’s soft-spoken and keeps to himself, and when he said he rapped, I wasn’t sure what to expect, since he doesn’t sport the arrogant swag that most MCs wear like fur-collar coats.

In the modern entertainment industry, Bay Holla is a Renaissance woman. Rapper, model, actress, philanthropist, street worker, manager, community organizer, and comedian, the Roxbury native is like an urban Rubik’s Cube. “I’m looking to make music,” she says, “but at the end of the day, I do everything.

Before rap came along, Millyz was a singer in his class chorus. “I just wanted to be a singer,” he says, sipping Hennessy at Riverside Pizza in Cambridge, “but I would always try to memorize what rappers said, so I could say it with them when I listened.” Growing up near Central Square, “with all the bums and crackheads and crazies,” Millyz was a white minority.

“When I’m in the studio, I’m calm,” says Young Riot, sitting in a swivel chair at his East Boston studio. “I can get pretty animated and go off. Someone saw me moving and called it a riot.” Call it the calm before the storm. The young rapper is making waves in Boston’s hip-hop scene. He signed with Bay State staple Amalgam Digital last year and has since been covered in Hip Hop magazine and the Source, performed at the 2010 SXSW music festival, gotten nominated for MTVU’s best freshman video (for “Money Money”), and started his own clothing company, YOMP.

Of all the artists in this spotlight, Fardaad’s segue into hip-hop makes the least sense. The Suffolk Law student started recording only three years ago, with one mic hooked up to his home computer, and he’s yet to put together a MySpace or Facebook profile, let alone a mixtape. “I’ve always been rapping, though,” says the Iranian-born MC who raps in both English and Farsi.

FOREST FIRES is Christopher Pappas of local favorites the Everyday Visuals gone solo. His new album, Hark! And Other Lost Transmissions, is a lo-fi, twangy, melancholy departure from his other band's usual Chiltonified pop, though it still retains some of their sweetness. Tonight, Pappas will wrap up a month-long residency at Arts for the Armory in Somerville, which I hear tell is a pretty good place to hear some live music

The first salvo from the M.I.A.camp has finally emerged: after a blimp over Coachella proclaimed the imminent arrival of her as-yet-untitled album (due out on June 29th), we now have a released track which may or may not show up on said album. If you were expecting a dance-tastic mish-mash of world music styles and hiccup-y rap hooks, then you are.

It's not like you couldn't see this coming -- we think the hint might have been when she wrote that song called "Please Drop Me" -- but now it's official. AMANDA PALMER: is now a free woman, at least where recording contracts are concerned. To prove it, she's offering a brand-new song, recorded last week, as a free mp3 download.

THE NATIONAL just leaked the first song from their highly-anticipated album HIGH VIOLET, due May 11. Download it after the jump . . .