CBC Radio 3’s featured new artist this week is So Loki, an experimental duo at the front and centre of Vancouver’s changing underground hip-hop scene.

The project of rapper Sam Lucia and producer Natura, So Loki pair bombastic, avant-garde production with clever lyrics, bringing everything from agro-bangers fueled by Vancouver’s affordability crisis to effervescent flirt-jams that are so catchy it’s hard to believe they haven’t broken into the mainstream. Yet.

Earlier this year, they released their album, V, in the form of a vacuum-sealed, cross-shaped USB (modelled after Vancouver's infamous East Van Cross). It's a collection of hook-and-beat heavy jams that would sound at home in both a dingy underground club or international stadium.

"V was all about innovation and establishing ourselves as a force to be reckoned with," the band told Radio 3 in a statement via email. "We wanted people to take Vancouver seriously as a hub for contemporary music and raise the bar for what can be expected from us in 2017. We started the year as new prospects in the scene and ended the year with a cult classic that put us at the top of this city's pecking order. We wanted people to get a glimpse of that journey when they heard the album."

And the band has big plans for 2017.

“We're currently chipping away at new music and preparing to venture into our biggest project to date as we roll into the new year. 2017 will be about breaking into an international market and working to be the west coast answer to Drake.”

While V remains sold out in USB form, you can stream it on Spotify.