Who: Azealia Banks

From: Harlem, NY

Who You Should Get To Know Her: Because she's classically trained and lyrically adept.  

Trey Songz is busy prepping his fifth studio album, Chapter 5, but in the meantime, he's keeping fans satisfied with a new five-song EP, Inevitable. The EP is already available in stores and for digital download, but before you buy, you can hear all five full-length tracks for free by clicking right here (Windows users only). 

Set on planet Ethio X in the year 16311 A.D. (because who isn't wondering what will be going on then?), the usually-ominous Abel Tesfaye (otherwise known as The Weeknd) comes out from behind his soundboard and from under your bed (that's how scarily I picture him!) for his first official video. After several failed fan-made attempts at the visuals for "The Knowing," the frontman - almost desperately - shut our inadequate imaginations down with a dismissing wave of the hand to deliver the proper picture - surreal, sultry and maybe a bit sick. 

Greetings Groove-y people, it's your Get To Know columnist Kathy Iandoli here. At the start of 2011, MSN's Groove began a weekly column called Get To Know. Through GTK we highlight a group or artist each week and talk about why they're worth getting to know. Lots of times we're fortunate enough to sit down with them and really pick their brains about their starts and music and what they plan to do here. So now that we're closing out 2k11 and Thanksgiving is here, I felt that now would be as good a time as any to share the top 10 GTK artists that I am particularly thankful for. If you didn't Get To Know them the first time around, maybe now is your chance.  

As her tenth studio album, it’s not totally inappropriate for Mary J. Blige to title this collection My Life II and present it as a sequel to her 1994 classic. Sequel albums are often a disappointment when held up next to the classic originals that justify their creation, but if the artist is able to tap into that feeling, the results can be great. In reality, there’s little resemblance between the two My Life albums outside of the obvious, but even after twenty years of hits and acclaim, Mary still shows signs of the younger self we all loved.

 

Disclaimer: I know that a lot of this discomfort has to do with the fact that I'm not 14 years old or Selena Gomez because, sans her celebrity, this song would surely be the equivalent of a poorly-written, but very sweet "like" letter any teen would have confused for love - but still. The echoed whispers as an intro? The shout-out to all "u" ladies? The rhyming of "true" with "true"? It's clear that neither Justin, nor his cohort Jaden Smith, are ready to mouth the lyrics to a babymaker. (Gross.) And it's clear that I'm not ready to hear it even if they are. 

Who: Elle Varner

From: Los Angeles, CA

Why You Should Get To Know Her: Because J. Cole co-signed and her and soon enough, so will you.  

By now, Rihanna’s early days as an innocent teen idol have long been forgotten, both due to a series of real-life scandals that need not be recapped and a series of deliberate choices as an artist and public figure. Nevertheless, Rihanna was groomed to be a star from a very young age and that process has created an artist who seems to be less in charge of her art than anyone else involved, including the consumers. There’s nothing wrong with that, really—the world needs pop idols and this is where they come from—but after five albums, we still haven’t seen Rihanna inhabit may be her own.