The best rap beats are nerdy as hell. Every drum placement, every melody, every chopped-up sample sends me down a YouTube rabbit hole trying to piece together the way a producer contorts and dissects ...

Rap in 2025 was all about experimentation. From the year’s first runaway hit, NBA player-turned-musician Gelo’s single “Tweaker,” to the maximalist ecclesiastics of Playboi Carti’s Music, or even in ...

Kendrick Lamar officially etched his name at the top of Hip Hop history on Grammy night, surpassing Jay-Z to become the most ...

In a year that had no rap songs in the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 40 for the first time since 1990, rap thrived in so many other ways. This list of the 25 best rap albums of 2025 includes grand ...

We should address the elephant in the room: hip-hop did not have a strong year on the charts. In fact, rap music had its worst showing in years. Back in October, it made headlines when—for the first ...

Back when hip-hop was seeping out of New York City and becoming the soundtrack of urban American, red states preferred the rootsy melodies of country music. In those years, the idea of combining the ...