Today, I went on my Soundcloud feed and discovered “Oops”, a new song by Asher Roth and Chester French’s DA Wallach. Last week, we were hearing new music from Mibbs and Like of Pac Div, and a week before that we heard the first Cool Kids song in five years.

Nowadays, when you think of the term ‘internet rap’,  ‘Lil’ artists like Yachty and Uzi Vert come to mind, but circa 2008 until about 2012, it referred to a very type of rapper. Since Lil Wayne managed to merge rap with the internet by dropping a half a dozen projects a year (most of them through rap sites like Datpiff and Mixtape Monkey), the internet became something more than just a place for discussion boards: it became the place to go for the latest release. Artists like the Cool Kids, Mickey Factz, and Donnis were dropping independent mixtapes through the blogosphere, and they were picking up more acclaim than those by Rick Ross, GZA, or Young Jeezy. It was a distinct change in the genre, paving the way for artists like Drake or Childish Gambino to use the internet as a way to find fame.

XV’s Zero Heroes, Asher Roth’s Asleep in the Bread Aisle, Pac Div’s Mania, and Chester French’s Jacques Jams were only a handful of the albums that dominated discussion, but one by one most of these artists or groups managed to either fall off, break up, or disappear entirely. But this year has seen an odd resurgence.

XV’s 2014 mixtape series March Madness reminded people that the artist who once worked with Kendrick Lamar, Pusha T, and J. Cole was still around, but he could never recreate hits like “Mirror’s Edge” or “Her Favorite Song“, and he went on to disappear for a couple years; recently, however, XV brought back both his twitter and announced a new album, Return to Dagobah. The Cool Kids returned with “Running Man” and announced a new album; Like (of Pac Div) dropped a single with Anderson .Paak; Asher Roth’s been recording with Royce da 5’9“; Donnis returned with new music and a new name; Audio Push finally released their first studio album; and Chris Webby dropped his most well-received project in years.

The glory days of this kind of ‘internet rap’ are long over, and it’s far from reasonable to assume we’ll get anything like “Black Mags” or “Awesome” in 2016-17, but times have changed in this ever-evolving genre. Either you adapt (like Asher Roth into jazz-rap) or you fall behind (like Chester French into obscurity), but all it takes is a good comeback single to help fans remember why they used to love you.