Company Brewing in Riverwest showcased a myriad of performers Saturday evening, including Sean Sison, J-Lamo, Jayne Joyce, and Mic Kellogg. With the crowd sipping on cranberry vodkas and IPA’s, Company was packed.

“It’s such an out of body experience having people you don’t even recognize rocking your songs,” Joyce said.

Sean Sison kicked things off with entirely new material set to appear on his upcoming ten-song project “Good and Bad,” which he says is meant to represent the angels and demons of relationships. His 2017 album “Bloom” featured the hit single “Tonight,” which currently has over 2.3 million streams on Spotify.

Despite the success on streaming platforms, Sison has not frequently performed.

“You don’t always have to grind by playing bars,” Sison said. “If I can use all my energy making a song great in the studio and just building my name that way, then playing shows all the time would get in the way of that.”

J-Lamo has a new project titled “Born and Raised” coming out soon, which he describes as somewhat of a remix to his 2016 project “Writer’s Block” and is an ode to hailing from the 414. Fellow rapper Smokey Jonez hopped on stage with him for the tail end of his set.

“Milwaukee is my truth,” J-Lamo said. “I speak on the things that I see. It’s strictly based off everything I grew up around.”

Jayne Joyce performed songs off her debut EP “Jayne” in addition to a number of new songs, which she says are being written as she is working through components of herself. One such lyric in a new song is the popular feminist phrase “God is a Woman.”

“I think everyone knows the power that women hold, especially men. Not a bad power, but the power of the comfort and the love women are able to give,” Joyce said.

Joyce is currently working on a project with fellow Milwaukee rapper Shle Berry, in addition to music of her own. Her single “Grayzone” drops this Friday, March 8th.

Saturday’s show marked Mic Kellogg’s first Milwaukee show following a hiatus where he had only performed in Madison in the past year. A live band featuring vocalist Riah Rivera, guitarist John Lenz, and drummer Jake Diaz accompanied Kellogg onstage. Rapper Rahn Harper joined Kellogg to perform their song “Issa Date.”

“There’s such a difference between rapping to a beat and rapping to instruments,” Kellogg said. “You can feel the shake of the kick-drum.”

Kellogg’s most recent project “Make This Last” dropped in September. His studio is located right above Company.

“Even when I produced it I imagined it to be in a live setting. The band really gets me in tune with my emotional side and why I wrote the songs.”

Kellogg weighs in on what is thematically going on in Make This Last.

“I’m 26, and people I know to my left and my right that I make music with have the light getting farther and farther away and they start to give up. The message behind every song is to have that feeling, even if you have to dig deep within, to last for yourself. It’s about finding the positivity and the balance for yourself and making it last for as long as you can.”

Kellogg has a jazz-inspired thirteen-song project with Riah Rivera he plans to release later this year.

New projects all around. Milwaukee’s music lovers are excited to see them through.

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