Age is a foreign concept to Trapo. The 17-year-old creates trans-genre experiments that boom with a confounding sense of maturity, nuance and intimacy, but to the kid that has been recording and mixing his own music since he was in fifth grade, this sudden ascension isn’t surprising. “I didn’t play magic cards or anything like that. I wasn’t all that into sports. I’ve been only interested in music for literally my entire life,” the Madison, Wis. native says. “I believe in certain signs. There’s just no way that I could be doing this so young without having some talent that was just meant to come out.” Trapo was included on Pigeons and Planes’ “20 Under 20” and “Best New Artists” lists, and his arresting blend of dour hip-hop and hypnotic neo soul has been featured in outlets like BBC Radio, Complex, HipHopDX, The FADER and Hot New Hip-Hop. He was raised on gospel music and contemporary R&B, but his favorite artist is Isaiah Rashad and he extracts influence from every corner of the Internet. Motifs of DUIs, desolate nights with Remy bottles, steamy visages of Hispanic women and generational anxieties over social media appear throughout his discography, but each song contains an element of unpredictability that has made Trapo’s fan base a vocal and fiercely loyal one. “The whole, ‘you could be an astronaut’ thing you hear as a kid never got to me. This is what I want to do. My music feels like freedom.”

If you don’t know Supa Bwe, you know his sound. The 29-year-old Chicago rapper has championed a combustible blend of hip hop, pop-punk, and R&B and helped carve out what would become a fertile, crowded lane occupied by younger stars like Lil Uzi Vert, XXXTENTACION, Trippie Redd, and YNW Melly. And yet, Supa is still constantly producing personal stylistic flourishes that no other artist could possibly replicate. On “Rememory,” from his new EP Just Say Thank You, he enlists Chance the Rapper to craft a dewy, electric piano-driven lullaby in which Bwe bounds in from left field and snatches the mic, instantly turning the track on its side with his singular singing voice—the sweet, sticky, Auto-tuned caterwaul of a lovesick feral cat.