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Welcome to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long series highlighting 24 up-and-coming artists we're thrilled about, augmented with a truckload of playlists, videos and other goodies. Today we've got an exclusive interview with Jay Buchanan, lead singer for Rival Sons, psych-boogie warlords from Los Angeles.

Every couple of years or so, some joker out there in the media-sphere declares the death of good old rock 'n' roll. These shenanigans have been going on since punk and hardcore declared war on the dinosaurs of classic rock back in the late 1970s. They're never right, of course; the music, as always, keeps on surviving. In fact, these days it's thriving, with such heavies as The Sword, Graveyard, Night Horse and Buffalo Killers bringing the riffs as if the Western calendar never made it past 1972. We can now add Rival Sons to the list, frying ears with their soul-infused brand of vintage hard rock. Rock critics keep comparing them to Led Zeppelin, and while they're not incorrect, true music nerds (like myself, I suppose) hear a band that's significantly more inspired by the groups that actually pre-dated Zep: The Jeff Beck Group, Eric Burdon and The New Animals, Vanilla Fudge, Blue Cheer, Bloomfield-Kooper-Stills and so on.

I recently talked with Buchanan while Rival Sons' tour made its way across the Midwest (and then on to the United Kingdom, where they're playing a spate of gigs with the mighty Judas Priest). The guy is a fabulous howler, one with an impressive range and a sharp sense of craft. He's outspoken, too, which made for a fun interview.

Welcome to the final installment of Rhapsody Radar, our month-long tribute to 24 up-and-coming artists who thrill us. Below you'll find our last six honorees: a couple melancholy but inspiring country upstarts, some muscular boogie-rock enthusiasts, a little experimental hip-hop, and a killer Canadian metal band with song titles like "Chained Up in Chains." Let's start with those guys, actually — read (and hear) below.

Cauldron: The Metalheads Bringing Catchiness Back

"We are youuuuung … and hungry!" Jason Decay proclaimed in the first song on Cauldron's 2009 debut album, and this metal trio has spent the two years since proving their case. They're a throwback to the pre-thrash early '80s — a time when metal bands were allowed to be super-fast, catchy, heavy and hilarious, all at once. Sometimes they even sound like Def Leppard crossed with Metallica, if both had quit after their own debut LPs: speed metal before the rock 'n' roll got purged from its system. Their album covers, too, are absurdly over-the-top in ways rarely seen since 1983 — girls on fire and in chains, both of which happen to be favorite song-title themes. Their Flying V-brandishing guitarist calls himself Ian Chains.

Welcome back to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long celebration of 24 up-and-coming artists we're excited about. Today, we've got an interview with playful electronic-music retro-futurist Com Truise. Read on, and for more in this vein, please see our Electronic Roundup, June 2011 playlist.

A former drum 'n' bass DJ, Seth Haley has tried his hand at various production aliases in a variety of styles, but it wasn't until he adopted the persona Com Truise that he found his first real acclaim. Despite the cleverness (or not-cleverness) of the name, Com Truise isn't some celebrity deconstruction or po-mo prank. The retro-futurist melancholy of the music soon gives the name a different resonance—you start thinking of "Com" as in "intercom," and "Truise" as, perhaps, a star in a distant quadrant. His debut album, Galactic Melt, pays homage to '70s synthesizer music, '80s funk, and Boards of Canada's woozy nostalgia for the same periods.

Read on as the upstate New Yorker talks to Rhapsody about synthesizers, sci-fi, subwoofers and Spoonerisms.

Welcome back to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long celebration of 24 up-and-coming artists we're excited about. Today, we've got an interview with playful controversial ice-queen pop star Natalia Kills. Read on, and for more in this vein, please see our Introducing Natalia Kills playlist.

Provocative up-and-coming British pop star Natalia Kills has been shocking and awing audiences all over Europe with her bold dance pop, dark and sometimes violently symbolic videos, and especially her fierce, unabashed opinions. Recently, we had the pleasure of hearing some of those opinions live, when Natalia called us from the set of her video for new single "Free" (off her debut, Perfectionist, set to drop in the U.S. in August). Fighting the noise of a set and, apparently, a wind storm that was hellbent on knocking pieces of scenery down, this articulate young artist gave us a piece of her mind about what it was like to tour with Robyn and work in the studio with will.i.am, her feelings about fame, and what in the world all those weird videos are about.

Welcome to another edition of Rhap Radar, our month-long survey of 24 up-and-coming artists that excite us. For a peek at what you've missed so far, here's a playlist of our first dozen honorees. And now we move on to a new batch, featuring a slow-burning blog-rap upstart, an Afro-Latin innovator (and politician!), Radiohead-esque indie rockers, a nostalgia-drenched electro-funker, and two women named Natalia (one a Latin-pop diva, the other a will.i.am-abetted pop star in training). Read on and listen in below.

Com Truise: The Synthesizer-Wielding Retro-Futurist

Welcome back to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long survey of 24 up-and-coming artists we're excited about. Today, we've got an exclusive chat with giggling Latin-pop diva Natalia Jiménez. For your listening pleasure, please also see our Natalia Jiménez's Ever-Expanding World playlist. Enjoy.

She got famous as the singer for Madrid-born, Latin-beloved band La Quinta Estacion, but it became clear over the course of our interview that Natalia Jiménez was destined to become a diva sola to be reckoned with. And we mean that in the best possible way. On the phone from her current home base of Miami (where she recorded her self-titled solo debut with Emilio Estefan — yes, Gloria's hubby), she is fierce, funny and fab.u.lous. She's also bubbly, sweet and earnest, with an easy, contagious giggle and a penchant for saying whatever happens to be on her mind at the moment. In short, she was pretty fantastic to talk to about just about anything, but especially about her experience working with Ricky Martin (she appeared on his new hit, "Lo Mejor De Mi Vida Eres Tú"), her musical "therapy" sessions after cancelling her wedding (on the day of!), and that big, powerful voice.

Welcome to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long series highlighting 24 artists we're particularly thrilled about, from soul iconoclasts to fledgling Latin-pop superstars, from swag-rap viral sensations to hip dance-punkers. We'll be highlighting six new names a week, with tons of videos, playlists and additional ephemera to boot. Today, we've got an exclusive interview with ascendant rapper Big Sean, relaxing in his tour bus and recounting how he convinced Kanye West to sign him after accosting 'Ye at a radio station, turning 16 bars into one of the year's most anticipated debut albums. For further illumination, listen to our Big Sean and the Leaders of the New Rap School playlist. Enjoy. Big Sean Finally Famous Big Sean's major-label debut follows three volumes of Finally Famous mixtapes and his first radio hit, "My Last" (thanks to an assist from Chris Brown). His victory lap builds momentum with lyrical exercises ("So Much More" and "High"), and help from executive producer No I.D. and mentor Kanye West (who appears on "Marvin & Chardonnay"). Sean's best track, a rewrite of the popular mixtape cut "Memories" (for "Memories (Part II)"), gives voice to a winningly sensitive personality sometimes lost amid such slick pop-rap environs. - Mosi Reeves

We're a little more than halfway through Rhapsody Radar, our month-long tribute to a couple dozen up-and-coming artists we're particularly thrilled about, from L.A. to Mali, Alabama to the Honduras. Here's a quick playlist highlighting the best of our first 12 honorees: look out for Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" and Kreayshawn's "Gucci Gucci" especially. Enjoy.

Click here to listen to: Rhapsody Radar 2011 Playlist I

On the Record is a video series where rock stars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. Click above to watch Kreayshawn give it up for her favorite album of all time, Dr. Octagon's Dr. Octagonecologyst. Play Gucci Gucci

Kreayshawn Gucci Gucci Dr. Octagon Dr. Octagon- ecologyst

Welcome back to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long survey of 24 new artists we're thrilled about. Recently we had the pleasure of talking one-on-one with one such honoree: up-and-coming soul singer Miguel, who is apparently not only incredibly talented, but also smart, articulate and oh so charming. (Good thing he's so damn cute, or we might have to hate him a little!) He gave us the lowdown on his rebellious plans to shake up the music industry with his sexy, sexy songs, not to mention his secret fandom of Justin Timberlake and what it's like to work with Usher. For a better idea of what this guy's all about, check out our Miguel and His Influences playlist.

Welcome to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long series highlighting 24 artists we're particularly thrilled about, from soul iconoclasts to fledgling Latin-pop superstars, from roots-rock titans to hip dance-punkers. We'll be highlighting six new names a week, with tons of videos, playlists and additional ephemera to boot. Today, we've got an exclusive interview with Oakland-to-L.A. swag-rap sensation Kreayshawn, whose YouTube-enabled hipster-fashion anthem "Gucci Gucci" is one of 2011's biggest (and weirdest) hits. Here, she talks about her critics/haters, what she'd do if Gucci offered her free clothes, and the weirdness of Bay Area rap; to get a better idea of that weirdness, check out our Bay Area Hip-Hop: 101 Bangers playlist. Play Gucci Gucci Bay Area rapper/filmmaker Kreayshawn’s aesthetic is as compelling as it is bizarre: she's like an escapee from the Mickey Mouse Club raised by hip-hop kids on the streets of Oakland. As evinced by her ridiculously addictive YouTube hit “Gucci Gucci,” she makes music that can be as goofy as Salt-n-Pepa's and as graphic as Tyler, the Creator's. If she can develop a sound with appeal outside the insular swag-rap community — which Columbia Records, who recently signed her, is betting she can — then we may be witnessing the birth of one of the most puzzling, controversial pop stars since Lady Gaga. - Garrett Kamps

Welcome to Rhapsody Radar, our series highlighting 24 up-and-coming artists we're thrilled about, augmented with all manner of playlists, videos and other such ephemera. Today we've got an exclusive interview with Sam Doumbia of Malian rap trio SMOD. Enjoy.

Even over email and through a French-to-English translator, Sam Doumbia of SMOD has a lot to say, and a compelling way of making people want to listen. It's a rather useful skill for a hip-hop artist to have. It's also not all that surprising, his being so outspoken and charismatic—after all, he's the son of Mali's Amadou and Mariam, the blind couple who've worked magic on Afro-pop. But he and his band are in the process of carving out their own legacy, one that's steeped in the power of hip-hop to simultaneously critique and celebrate, but laced throughout with new innovations in African musical traditions. In the process, they're changing the African hip-hop game, and bringing it to the attention of people around the world.

Here, Doumbia talks with Rhapsody about working with Manu Chao (who produced their new, self-titled album), the complicated influence of West Africa's griot tradition on contemporary hip-hop, and musical life in his hometown of Bamako, Mali.

Rhapsody: Tell us the story of how you came to make music together.

Sam Doumbia: We all met in high school in Bamako and started jamming in the classroom when the teacher was away. The jam session got deeper when we hit Faladié, a popular neighborhood where you could meet MC's just around any corner. The SMOD crew basically got stronger and stronger by battling with Faladié MC's every night.

Welcome to week two of Rhapsody Radar, our series highlighting 24 up-and-coming artists we're thrilled about, augmented with all manner of playlists, videos and other such ephemera. This week we've got a blog-rap sensation, a couple of idiosyncratic soul/R&B rookies, a small-town country belter and more. Take a look, and then take a listen.

Kreayshawn: The Improbable YouTube Rap Sensation

Picture it in skywriting above the Golden Gate Bridge: "Nobody gettin' over me/ I got the swag and it's pumping out my ovaries." Whether that's one giant leap for feminism or just a rallying cry for swag rap's female generation probably doesn't matter much to Bay Area native Kreayshawn. She raps about being an Adderall dealer; it's doubtful she cares what you think. Born Natassia Zolot, the 21-year-old rapper/filmmaker has enjoyed a meteoric career trajectory over the last year, dropping an Internet-acclaimed mixtape, earning accolades from the likes of Snoop Dogg, garnering many millions of YouTube views for her (ridiculously addictive) "Gucci Gucci," and, perhaps most important of all, establishing herself as down with hip-hop's most notorious crew, Odd Future.

Welcome to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long series highlighting 24 artists we're particularly thrilled about, from blog-rap princesses to fledgling Latin-pop superstars, from roots-rock titans to hip dance-punkers. We'll be highlighting six new names a week, with tons of videos, playlists and additional ephemera to boot. Today, we've got an exclusive interview with L.A. dance-pop titans Foster the People, whose Pumped Up Kicks is one of 2011's biggest breakout singles. Enjoy. For more listening enjoyment, check out our Hipster Dance Club playlist. Just in time for summer, L.A. trio Foster the People deliver their debut, a neon-lit electro-pop record that works every catchy element in the hip-kid's handbook. Torches starts off in the Daft Punk pyramid before reverb infiltrates and a flaccid falsetto snakes in. Breakout single "Pumped Up Kicks" should perk Peter Bjorn and John's ears up, its dark lyrics ("You better run, better run, faster than my bullet") disguised with a jolly whistle and a smooth dance groove. Elsewhere, hints of MGMT's kitschy pop and Passion Pit's relentless synth-bounce will have the kids flocking. - Stephanie Benson

Welcome to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long series highlighting 24 up-and-coming artists we're particularly thrilled about, from blog-rap princesses to country sirens, from guitar-rock titans to hip dance-punkers. We'll be highlighting six new names a week, with tons of videos, playlists and additional ephemera to boot. Today we've got an exclusive video chat with Latin-pop polymath Ximena Sariñana, one of this week's honorees. As part of our On the Record series—wherein an artist talks about his or her all-time favorite record for 45 seconds exactly—she'll be discussing John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band. Enjoy.

Ximena Sariñana: Mediocre John Lennon Plastic Ono Band

By now we've got a pretty good handle on the biggest stars of 2011: Adele! Gaga! Rebecca Black! But what about the next wave — the up-and-coming artists we're particularly excited about, those we expect will be clogging up RSS feeds and year-end critics' lists and possibly magazine covers sooner rather than later?

With that in mind, welcome to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long series highlighting 24 artists we're especially thrilled about, from blog-rap princesses to fledgling Latin-pop superstars, from roots-rock titans to hip dance-punkers. We'll be highlighting six new names a week, with tons of videos, playlists and additional ephemera to boot. Here's our initial batch, with all songs linked to their Rhapsody pages for instant discovery. Get acquainted, and have fun.

Welcome to Rhapsody Radar, our month-long series highlighting 24 artists we’re particularly thrilled about, from blog-rap princesses to fledgling Latin-pop superstars, from roots-rock titans to hip dance-punkers. We’ll be highlighting six new names a week, with tons of videos, playlists and additional ephemera to boot. Today, we’ve got an exclusive interview with Mississippi rapper/producer Big K.R.I.T., a Dirty South revivalist with an affinity for everyone from OutKast to Adele. Enjoy. Click here to listen to our Big K.R.I.T. Sampler playlist. If you follow rap blogs, then you've probably already downloaded Big K.R.I.T.'s acclaimed mixtapes, 2010's K.R.I.T. Wuz Here and 2011's Return Of 4eva. The Mississippi rapper specializes in Dirty South revivalism, paying frequent tribute to '90s heroes like UGK and OutKast with bluesy reality rap. This EP includes five gems from those mixtapes, including a remix of his "Country Sh*t" single and "The Vent," wherein he proves he can mine deeper emotions than the thrills of Southern-flavored capitalism. If you don't know K.R.I.T., R4: The Prequel is a good way to get familiar. - Mosi Reeves