As hip-hop celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, headlines swirled around its potentially diminishing force as a commercial juggernaut: The first half of the year didn’t see a rap song or album top Billboard’s main charts for the first time since 1993. More recent months quelled industry fears, with lackluster records and tracks by the likes of Travis Scott, Jack Harlow, and Doja Cat scoring No. 1s, but the fact remains: Pretty much all of the best rap music being made right now is further down the charts, or not on them at all.
It’s coming from underground heroes like New York doomsayer billy woods and Detroit punchline addict Veeze. From all-women posses bubbling out of Memphis and Chicago. From internet oddballs like TisaKorean and RXK Nephew. From dedicated scenes in Milwaukee and the DMV that are fighting for their place on the rap map. As the genre turns 50, its most rewarding songs wisely cherry-pick from the past while staying true to rap’s reputation as a harbinger of what’s next.
The following list, sorted alphabetically, includes rap songs found on Pitchfork’s main year-end tally as well as additional tracks that did not make that list but are still very much worth a listen.
Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.
Check out all of Pitchfork’s 2023 wrap-up coverage here.
2HUMPY / 2RARE: “2HUMPY Anthem”
The Philly club rap crew 2Humpy debuted in early May with an animated On the Radar freestyle that showcased their watertight chemistry, belting punchlines and ad-libs in unison as they gathered shoulder-to-shoulder around a single mic; by Halloween, they had broken up. In between, they dropped one of the year’s most delirious party anthems. While 2023’s pop landscape was littered with half-assed rehashes of bygone hits, the group’s eponymous posse cut succeeds as an ouroboros of nostalgia, fusing flows swiped from Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s “It Takes Two,” a flip of the iconic saxophone sample from Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without a Pause,” and hypnotic 808 kicks that thread two decades of Jersey and Philly club innovation together. Maybe we just didn’t deserve 2Humpy. –Jude Noel
Listen: 2HUMPY / 2RARE, “2HUMPY Anthem”
Armand Hammer: “The Gods Must Be Crazy” [ft. El-P]
On We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, Armand Hammer’s constantly molting new album, phones are always intruding into the songs: landlines crackle and die, calls are blocked or dropped, and Siri is a harbinger of death. El-P’s beat for “The Gods Must Be Crazy” sounds like the uneasy fusion of data and flesh—in this case, human voices stripped from their bodies and collapsed into a rhythm that could double as a ringtone. Elucid and billy woods write about the fraught interconnectivity this motif suggests, the former wielding Xeroxed visas while the latter inches “to the edge of Earth/Sunburnt—black as Pompeii.” When woods later raps about “overlapping Venn diagrams overlapping,” the tenuousness of those connections is laid bare. –Paul A. Thompson
Listen: Armand Hammer, “The Gods Must Be Crazy” [ft. El-P]
AyooLii: “Shmackin Town”
Rambunctious Milwaukee rapper AyooLii’s catalog is vast, including over 150 YouTube uploads in 2023 alone, but one thing is clear across his many, many songs: He wants everyone to know he’s got jokes. “Shmackin Town” feels like a tossed-off gag brought to life, as it flips Lipps Inc.’s wedding-reception staple “Funkytown” into an absurdist celebration of AyooLii’s hometown sound. Producer 2PHONENOAH adds the booming bass and four-on-the-floor beat that are everywhere in Milwaukee, while AyooLii rattles off one-liners about girls whose butt lifts he paid for—one because her booty was flat, and another because her booty was fat. –Shy Thompson
Further Reading: “Inside the Unmistakable Madness of Milwaukee’s Rap Scene”
Listen: AyooLii, “Shmackin Town”
Baby Keem / Kendrick Lamar: “The Hillbillies”
It’s nice to see Kendrick having fun again. On “The Hillbillies,” atop bright Jersey club drums and a Bon Iver sample, the rapper and his cousin Baby Keem ride a jangling beat as they battle for the best one-liners. Lamar sets the tone, spouting off about getting “four McDonald’s”—that is, probably, $4 million—“every time I land, bro,” while Keem responds with his own goofy flex about liking “irregular girls.” Their natural chemistry is off-the-charts and addictive, like watching two All-Stars scoring style points instead of trying to win the game. –Matthew Strauss
Listen: Baby Keem / Kendrick Lamar, “The Hillbillies”
BigXthaPlug: “Rush Hour”
When BigXThaPlug starts rapping in his preternaturally chill Texas drawl, it sounds like he could go forever. On “Rush Hour,” from his breakout 2023 project Amar, he revs up quickly, catching a slick flow and flexing in ways that would make Bun B proud. His punchlines aren’t always the most inventive, but he delivers them so smoothly—like he’s rapping from an easy chair—that they sound brand new. He’s poised to take the game on at whatever pace he wants. –Dylan Green
Listen: BigXthaPlug, “Rush Hour”
billy woods / Kenny Segal: “Year Zero” [ft. Danny Brown]
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and billy woods is feeling particularly nihilistic. The deadpan New York rap realist sounds like he’s burrowed into a bunker on this doomsaying spiral from Maps, his staggering album with the producer Kenny Segal. Bleak thoughts fester inside his skull. Living in the only country on Earth with more guns than people, he dreams up a nightmare in which there are “two unrelated active shooters—same place, same time.” The song’s most brutal gut punch, meanwhile, is a simple matter of fact: “My taxes pay police brutality settlements.”
If woods is stewing underground in this dystopian hellscape, Danny Brown is commandeering an abandoned amusement park and reveling in the anarchy. Over queasy feedback that squeals like a zombie radio signal, Brown tosses off rhetorical bicycle kicks, rhymes Cool Runnings with Good Will Hunting, and cracks wise about out-of-service McDonald’s soft serve machines. Together, the two rappers conjure an apocalypse that’s as hopeless as it is hilarious, the cruelest possible joke. –Ryan Dombal
Listen: billy woods / Kenny Segal, “Year Zero” [ft. Danny Brown]
Bktherula: “NO ADLIB”
Good luck keeping up with New York rapper Bktherula: She studied quantum physics at the University of Tokyo. She collaborated with Youngboy NeverBrokeAgain. And on the breathless “No Adlib,” over a skittering beat that unfurls like a weaponized Slinky, she delivers one of the wildest, double-take-worthy couplets of the year: “I’ll eat a bitch whole ass with a fork/I collect toys at this age, I’m a dork.” Every time her volume builds before dropping back down to a rasping whisper, she injects another shot of adrenaline into the giddy cut, coming off like a monkish DMX who can expound upon the cosmos for hours on end. –Hattie Lindert
Listen: Bktherula, “NO ADLIB”
Cash Cobain: “Nice N Slow”
Cash Cobain may have cornered the market on sexy drill this year, but he isn’t done broadening its horizons just yet. “Nice N Slow,” a standout from his album Pretty Girls Love Slizzy, takes the Bronx rapper-producer’s raunchy sounds in a more ambitious direction. It starts out with a keyboard line that simmers over vocoder vocals before giving way to hi-hats, 808s, and a chorus of digital voices. The song sounds like a pass at yacht rock or a happier inversion of a track from Daft Punk’s Tron: Legacy soundtrack—making it doubly funny and exciting when Cobain spits silly punchlines about “the wetties” and compares his sex game to step dancers from Atlanta. Core elements of what make a great Cash Cobain song—the horny puns, the beguiling sample, the frenetic pacing—are all here, and they’re all amplified by his expanding creative vision. –Dylan Green
Listen: Cash Cobain, “Nice N Slow”
Central Cee / Dave: “Sprinter”
The animating query at the center of this song is basically: How many women can you fit in a minibus? Both Dave and Central Cee have handled weightier topics, but “Sprinter” reminds us a good time doesn’t need to be deep. To a delicate strum of Spanish guitar, the silver-tongued London MCs riff on getting paid and getting girls; the lines are smart, the rizz impeccable. “Heard that girl is a gold digger,” deadpans Dave, “It can’t be true if she dated you.” “Sprinter” topped the UK charts for 10 weeks, making it the country’s longest-running No. 1 UK rap single ever. That it feels almost shrugged-off only makes its dominance that much more impressive. –Louis Pattison
Listen: Central Cee / Dave, “Sprinter”
City Girls: “Face Down”
“Face Down” is a welcome reminder of City Girls’ propensity for churning out X-rated bangers. Flipping one of 2 Live Crew’s most notoriously obscene hooks, the duo dishes out trademark manifestos on scheming men over a riotous bounce beat. Even as Yung Miami and JT have spent more time as moguls and models than as rappers in recent years, “Face Down” proves that their raucous formula can still clock out hits. –Claire Shaffer
Listen: City Girls, “Face Down”
Devstacks: “Praise God”
Imagine if the heavens opened up, and an angel descended, harp in hand, with the message that they were going to “bag yo mama.” That’s essentially the experience of listening to “Praise God,” the opening track from Massachusetts rapper-producer Devstacks’ 2023 album Scriptures.
Taking notes from Chief Keef, Pierre Bourne, and godlike film composer John Williams in equal measure, Dev’s grand instrumental opens with a fanfare fit for a bejeweled king before settling into its towering orchestral beat. The enormity makes it play like a worship song for hip-hop’s well-loved pleasures: bad bitches, designer clothes, and God. In Devstacks’ church, no production touch is too extravagant, because everyone is already wearing Prada. –Hattie Lindert
Listen: Devstacks, “Praise God”
Drake: “8am in Charlotte”
Every now and then, when Drake decides to stop sounding like an insufferable White Lotus character, sing-whining about botched luxury vacations and the women who have supposedly done him dirty, he can still be one of the best bar-for-bar rappers on the planet. “8am in Charlotte” continues in the tradition of his head-down timestamp tracks, unloading tangy punchlines over dinner party boom-bap. He’s a wannabe Letterboxd power user, referencing Citizen Kane, Jordan Peele, and Silence of the Lambs while tsk-tsking a date because “your words don’t match your actions, like a foreign film.” He’s a not-so-secret assassin, tossing subliminals at YoungBoy and Kanye as he alludes to possessing career-ending videos of his enemies that he could unleash at any moment. But most memorably, he’s the host of an amateur European history podcast, dropping the names of defunct nations as part of his quest for quotables. “So many checks owed I feel Czech-o-slovakian,” he raps, hilariously, before reacting to the line with an incredulous “What the fuck?” This time, he actually deserves to be amazed by his own dingbat brilliance. –Ryan Dombal
Listen: Drake, “8am in Charlotte”
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Earl Sweatshirt: “Making the Band (Danity Kane)”
“Making the Band (Danity Kane)” is a swift shattering of every preconceived notion of what an Earl Sweatshirt song sounds like. Gone are the magnetically morose raps laid over dusty soul loops. Instead, as Evilgiane and Clams Casino’s chattering, anti-gravity production churns behind him, Earl expertly navigates an alien landscape, sounding newly invigorated. His quotables about MTV-era pop stars and the Incredible Hulk feel akin to proverbs, and lines about dancing in the rain and cracking bank safes come off as keys to enlightenment. Where Earl’s music was once ruled by murkiness and confusion, he’s now crystal clear—if only for a couple of minutes. –Matthew Ritchie
Listen: Earl Sweatshirt, “Making the Band (Danity Kane)”
El Cousteau: “10 Carat”
After spending years on the grind down in Washington, D.C., El Cousteau is ready for his closeup. “10 Carat,” from his fourth album, Dirty Harry, bursts through the wall with lessons and style to spare. He can flow over any beat you throw his way, but producer twelveAM’s jumpy hi-hats and chipmunk’d vocal samples give him fuel to come in hot, expanding on a love-hate relationship with money, close calls with death at home, and his own good fortune. “Some people here really for a lifetime/Some people just here only for the weekend,” he says, stunned by the revelation while playing it off with gold-plated confidence. –Dylan Green
Listen: El Cousteau, “10 Carat”
Flo Milli: “Fruit Loop”
Flo Milli knows how to take the high of a sugar rush and knock a listener in the chest with it. “Fruit Loop” ramps that energy up until it snaps. She delivers simple, cutting bars like “You bitches really weak and you just talk online” and the laugh-out-loud diss “Tryna talk big but he got a lil pee-pee” with a peppy vindictiveness, like Harley Quinn faking a conversation with someone while holding a candy-coated mallet behind her back. –Dylan Green
Listen: Flo Milli, “Fruit Loop”
Hitkidd / Aleza / Slimeroni: “You the Type” [ft. Gloss Up and K Carbon]
This high-powered posse cut assembled by “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” producer Hitkidd is more than an immaculate club-rap flex. Beyond these four Memphis rappers’ bottle-service braggadocio and sexual objectification lies a statement of standards—for their peers, their partners, and themselves. Atop a horror-movie melody beat, they spit bars detailing their lack of tolerance for deadbeats, simps, wimps, and women who lack the self-respect that they demand as bare minimum. Because as fun as it is to stunt on hoes and haters, it’s even more important to take care of yourself. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz
Listen: Hitkidd / Aleza / Slimeroni, “You the Type” [ft. Gloss Up and K Carbon]
Ice Spice: “Deli”
In New York, your deli is a sacred place: the camaraderie, the convenience, the Salsalito turkey sandwiches. So Ice Spice repping for her own is the perfect way to show that, despite her fast rise to pop stardom (and Taylor Swift’s inner circle), she’s still a Bronx girl through and through. “Hunnit bands in Chanely/But I’m still shakin’ ass in a deli,” she raps on the immediately memorable hook. Backed by a rumbling, Jersey-club inspired beat from her producer RiotUSA, Ice Spice goes in the opposite direction of bubblegum hits like “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” and “Barbie World,” with a vocal intensity and booming ad-libs that throw back to her drill roots. In this hardened mode, even cuddly lyrics like “I love white bitches, like, shoutout to Lucy” sound as if they’re warning shots. It doesn’t get more New York than that. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: Ice Spice, “Deli”
JPEGMAFIA / Danny Brown: “Fentanyl Tester”
Picture this: You’re cutting it up on the dancefloor when you realize—all too late—that you’ve been too indiscriminate in your drug use. Reality glitches. Time goes non-linear. Your fun night out is suddenly about to become a wild, white-knuckle ride into the abyss. “Fentanyl Tester” exists in the queasy, amphetamine-fuelled delirium of that moment.
JPEGMAFIA layers subterranean bass and frenetic drum breaks over chopped-up, helium-speed samples of Kelis’ “Milkshake,” marrying the velocity of ’90s jungle with hyperpop’s ADHD whiplash. He and Danny Brown trade frantic bars about Molly and Marmaduke, the words tumbling out so fast you can barely parse them. There’s no respite, no empty spaces to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and hope you make it to the other side in one piece. –Bhanuj Kappal
Listen: Danny Brown / JPEGMAFIA, “Fentanyl Tester”
Kari Faux: “White Caprice” [ft. Gangsta Boo]
Kari Faux’s “White Caprice” is a rich slice of old-school Southern rap–all thick basslines, affirmations to “the Black babies born below the Mason-Dixon,” and rolling O’s in the back of a speeding Chevy. Faux and producer Phoelix give the song an energetic bounce, especially when Faux’s bars seem to bend and stretch around the beat like a Caprice taking a wide turn. Things get heavier when the unmistakable voice of Gangsta Boo, who passed away in January, comes in for a guest verse. Hearing the Memphis pioneer trade stories and talk shit with a stylistic descendant one more time is bittersweet, a reminder of her greatness and her absence. –Dylan Green
Listen: Kari Faux, “WHITE CAPRICE” [ft. Gangsta Boo]
Kashh Mir: “$4800” [ft. Mello Buckzz, Moni Da G, and Amari Blaze]
The Chicago team of Kashh Mir, Mello Buckzz, Moni Da G, and Amari Blaze had adrenaline-rushing posse cuts on lock right in 2023—first with February’s high-energy “Boom (Remix)” and then with May’s trash talking extravaganza “$4800.” From the opening hook of “$4800,” they are in full chaos mode. It’s so loose and fun and carefree; any and all structure could fuck off.
There are no weak links here, and everyone gets their moment in the spotlight: Kashh Mir comes through like a wrecking ball, Moni Da G is a ball of charisma, and Mello Buckzz has a verse so good that I’m jealous of anyone who’s gotten to hear it shouted in a crowded room. And then there’s the anchor, Amari Blaze, who gets off a hilariously fucked-up bar about “throwing snacks” at an infant’s head. Don’t cross them. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: Kashh Mir, “$4800” [ft. Mello Buckzz, Moni Da G, and Amari Blaze]
Ken Carson: “Lose It”
One day, when my hearing inevitably starts to go, part of the blame will go to Ken Carson’s “Lose It.” I’ll take the L, though, because if you’re not running this joint on max volume, you’re doing it wrong. How else could anyone properly take in producers Gab3 and Legion’s ultra blown-out 808s? Like Metro Boomin’s “I Serve the Base” or peak Lex Luger, it’s one of those beats that splits your eardrums into pieces and sends vibrations down your spine. And inside this mayhem, Playboi Carti protégé Ken Carson is getting in his feelings. Somehow, it’s the most emotive he’s ever been, like his world and the world are crumbling at the same time. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: Ken Carson, “Lose It”
Kenzo B: “N.B.L. (N***as Be Lying)”
There’s something about the sweet, chipmunk’d vocal sample and flirty, no-nonsense lyrical approach of Kenzo B’s “N.B.L.” that would have had New York in a stranglehold in 2009. I can imagine it playing on an episode of 106 & Park—right after “Kiss Me Thru the Phone”—or hearing it as someone’s ringtone out in the wild and bopping along until they answered. In 2023, it’s a somewhat-underappreciated track on the Bronx drill up-and-comer’s EP Top 2, Not 2. The key is the soft, flickering bounce of the instrumental, which I’m sure Mac & Cheese-era French Montana (who counts Kenzo as part of his Coke Boys crew) would have bodied. Kenzo’s racing flow is so smooth and controlled even as she rolls her eyes at some dude who keeps playing games. This one just might make me download my first ringtone in a decade. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: Kenzo B, “N.B.L.”
Key Glock: “Randy Orton”
Glockoma 2, Memphis rapper Key Glock’s first solo album since his cousin and mentor Young Dolph’s 2021 death, eschews guest stars in favor of a pointed expression of individuality and hometown pride. On standout track “Randy Orton,” the production is sparse but intentional: a trap beat with vintage tones that evoke Memphis’ rich history in rhythm and blues. An organ accompanies Key Glock as he preaches the gospel of hoes and Caddys over thumping bass and smoky guitars, collapsing time and space, the sacred and the profane. Few records achieve such a distinct sense of place—a sign that the city, and its sound, are in good hands. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz
Listen: Key Glock, “Randy Orton”
KP Skywalka: “TyFreka”
In the style of Jay-Z’s “Girls, Girls, Girls,” the-Dream’s “Shawty Is a 10,” or Petey Pablo’s “Freek-A-Leek,” D.C. loverboy KP Skywalka’s “Tyfreka” is a song about all the women he’s lusting after. There’s Tyreka (“When I get home I’ma fold her up”), Teneva (“Put it on me with her big ol’ butt”), and someone who must remain anonymous (“She too real, if I gon’ say her name then I’d be dumb as fuck”). You can practically see him cheesing atop the high-pitched R&B sample, like he’s daydreaming while scrolling through his DMs. –Alphonse Pierre
Further Reading: “It’s Hard Not to Fall for KP Skywalka’s Hustler Love Anthems”
Listen: KP Skywalka, “TyFreka”
LaRussell / Sada Baby: “Pergola Freestyle (Live)”
Bay Area rapper LaRussell has been throwing—and filming—intimate rap shows in the backyard of his childhood home in Vallejo, California for a minute now, and earlier this year he invited Detroit’s Sada Baby to join the freewheeling experience for “Pergola Freestyle.” Backed by only a bassline and the live finger plucks of violin strings, Sada starts out unusually timid. Within seconds, though, as a cowboy hat-wearing LaRussell hypes him up like a football coach, Sada’s intensity blooms to the point that he locks into an unconscious blur of growls, stutters, and punchlines. By the time he hands the mic over to LaRussell, the crowd is in full on block-party mode, hanging on every single one of the prolific neighborhood hero’s chanted flexes and hyperlocal references. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: LaRussell and Sada Baby, “Pergola Freestyle (Live)”
Little Simz: “Gorilla”
Plenty of rappers can string together a mythmaking verse, but truly selling it takes the kind of swagger you can’t teach. On “Gorilla,” Little Simz exudes a detached cool, rapping with uncommon confidence. A horn fanfare builds hype—you can imagine Simz standing stone-faced, shouldering a championship belt—before shifting into a face-scrunching groove. It’s the type of classic bassline-and-breakbeat hip-hop that’s aged as beautifully as practical film effects. Simz oozes into the pocket, side-eyeing lesser rappers and fairweather fans when she’s not boasting about the depth of her skills and the futility of challenging them. She’s unbothered and in her lane, offering a masterclass in the subtle art of talking that shit. –Dash Lewis
Listen: Little Simz, “Gorilla”
Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon: “Eight Pregnancy Scares”
If another Friday sequel ever happens, Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon should be cast as a supporting character. Even when he’s not spitting punchlines, his observational rhymes have the air of a shared neighborhood anecdote, the kind that’s peppered with just a slight sprinkle of ridiculousness. On “Eight Pregnancy Scares,” the North Carolina native turns a story of high-school romance into an earnest one-damn-thing-after-another situation, where he eventually gets the nerve to apologize for messing up. “She forgave, but never re-approved with trust/On some ‘as far as I can throw you’/I won’t lie, I can’t hold you, as long as I’ve known, you’ve been my truest love,” he says with a sigh—only for her to interrupt the song to tell him to stop lying. Charging it to the game has rarely sounded so relaxed. –Dylan Green
Listen: Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon, “Eight Pregnancy Scares”
Maiya the Don: “Dusties”
The charismatic Brooklyn-born rapper Maiya the Don has the same energy as an amped-up best friend hitting your line to talk shit after a bad breakup. “You thought I was feelin’ you? I was drunk!,” she says bluntly on “Dusties,” sounding like she can’t even stand to look at the person she’s spiting. There’s a bob-and-weave deftness to the punchlines she spits over the track’s piano stabs and thumping drums, including wild burns like, “Even though we used to fuck, it’s better with your bro.” Come correct or get folded up. –Dylan Green
Listen: Maiya the Don, “Dusties”
MIKE / Wiki / The Alchemist: “Mayors a Cop”
The mayor of New York is a cop—an incontrovertible fact with damning implications. Rather than belabor the premise, NYC loyalists Wiki and MIKE use it to frame an experiential dialogue. Conditions include sweltering heat and slushy cold, skyrocketing rents and crumbling infrastructure; hemmed in on all sides, the rappers are left to assert their own personhood. “Mayors a Cop” is at once deliberate and meandering, with Wiki and MIKE exchanging wordy, emotive bars. Alchemist’s swirling horns evoke a military roll call, but the leaden tempo and muffled snare expose it for what it really is: a funeral dirge. –Pete Tosiello
Listen: MIKE / Wiki / The Alchemist, “Mayors a Cop”
Navy Blue: “Pillars”
Throughout his Def Jam debut Ways of Knowing, Navy Blue ruminates on the love and wisdom of his family, placing his own coming of age within the context of his ancestors. Over a celestial electric piano on “Pillars,” he mourns the loss of his grandfather, who showed him how to be a man. “Coulda sworn he’ll live forever, now the shit just ain’t the same,” he raps. Yet his tone exudes more grace than grief, as he’s spurred to cherish the present with his grandmother—a kiss on the forehead, a word of encouragement. In the process, he arrives at the place where acceptance becomes transcendence. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz
Listen: Navy Blue, “Pillars”
Niontay: “Thank Allah”
The Boston Celtics, Niontay’s favorite basketball team, don’t need your approval. By the luck of the Irish and the grit of each possession, they’ll outwork and out-magic your team to victory. This is how listening to the Brooklyn-via-Kissimmee rapper’s muted opus “Thank Allah” feels: No drums, no frills, just bars and a prayer, his warm Florida flows snaking around swampy keyboard and squiggly bass. As Niontay’s dizzying verse unfurls across various plays, Irish goodbyes and trips across the map, he remains poised and cold-blooded, like a buzzer beater in slow-motion: “Get a bag and go home, nigga, it's the playoffs / Took a nigga shit, took his work, ain’t no days off.” When the drums finally kick in at the end, it’s like confetti raining down on TD Garden. –Mano Sundaresan
Listen: Niontay, “Thank Allah”
Noname: “Namesake”
Noname isn’t afraid to delve into the messiness of making art with a global consciousness while toiling within a capitalist economy. On “Namesake,” she laments the pervasiveness of complacency, admits we’re all complicit, and rails against war crimes from inside a cloud of blunt smoke. Over a percolating funk beat, Noname calmly eviscerates the very concept of sacred cows, adopting a faux-cheerleader lilt as she connects the dots between Super Bowl headliners Beyoncé, Kendrick, and Rihanna, and the NFL’s longtime association with the military industrial complex. In the next breath, she calls out the woman in the mirror for playing Coachella after she said she wouldn’t. “Namesake” is a ruthless song about accountability from which no one is safe—not even Noname. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz
Listen: Noname, “Namesake”
Ot7Quanny / Leaf Ward: “Power”
This year it felt like half of Philly’s rap scene was riding the feel-good bounce of club music (see: 2Humpy and the Philly Goats), while the other half was summoning evil spirits. Punchline sorcerers Ot7Quanny and Leaf Ward fit squarely into the latter camp. Their best outing as a duo is “Power,” where they lay the smackdown over an armageddon-ready beat. Leaf Ward, clearly raised on a steady diet of Meek and Major Figgas, has that old school Philly freestyle rapper swag: He can make you hit a stank face off his tumbling flow alone. Quanny’s patient delivery makes him sound like a boogeyman with an encyclopedic knowledge of animated Disney sitcoms from the early 2000s: “Pockets all blue look like the sisters off The Proud Family.” The half-second pause after every punch-in is loaded, like the creak of the floor in a horror movie. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: Ot7Quanny / Leaf Ward, “Power”
RealYungPhil / Gud: “Winners Circle”
In the mid 2010s, the rapper RealYungPhil and the producer Gud surfaced far apart from each other on the hip-hop map: Phil was laying down rhymes over clap-heavy Connecticut dance rap; Gud was cooking up faded synths as a member the underground Swedish group Sad Boys. But that distance makes their unlikely collaborative album, Victory Music, that much more exciting. On the record’s best track, “Winner’s Circle,” Gud’s beat moves like snow melting in the arctic. To match the mood, Phil raps like he’s at three-quarter speed, his East Coast monotone sounding like the voice of God. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: RealYungPhil / Gud, “Winners Circle”
RXK Nephew: “Yeezy Boots”
In all of the debate over Kanye West’s place in our current cultural climate, no one has gotten to the point as quickly as RXK Nephew: “Jay-Z don’t even like you,” “the whole G.O.O.D. Music made bad music,” and most damningly, “you signed Big Sean.” The latest in the Rochester rapper’s ongoing series of appointment-listening diss tracks, “Yeezy Boots” works well enough as a litany of opinions about Kanye’s rapping (mediocre), street credibility (non-existent), haircut (dumbass) and shoes (same). But it’s also a meditation on an important concern for RXK Nephew, whose utter disregard for social propriety puts his career at risk nearly every time he drops a track: just how much out-of-pocket shit can someone say before they suffer actual consequences? “They doing Kanye like R. Kelly/I don’t care, I don’t wanna hear his music,” Neph mutters, knowing damn well that most of Ye’s sins would be absolved if he was still making hits. –Ian Cohen
Listen: RXK Nephew, “Yeezy Boots”
Sexyy Red: “SkeeYee”
No artist left less to the imagination this year than Sexyy Red, who broke out with a single called “Pound Town” and its extremely memorable opening declaration: “My coochie pink, my booty hole brown.” That blunt approach extends to “SkeeYee,” a summer anthem off the St. Louis rapper’s debut mixtape, Hood Hottest Princess, that’s now universal enough to have countless viral remixes and a place in Fat Joe’s vocabulary. Amid a bell-chiming beat, Red explains exactly what the song’s emphatic hook means: pull up! Turns out that’s a solid rallying cry. It’s also just really fun to say “skeeyee!”—especially when you’re supposed to be quiet. “Pound Town” may have established Red on the charts, but this is the song that distills her disruptive glee. –Hattie Lindert
Listen: Sexyy Red, “SkeeYee”
Sideshow: “Shell in a Ghost”
Laid-back D.C. rapper Sideshow has a delivery that isn’t so much hushed as it is tempered, sliding so easily across beats that threats, boasts, and jokes might not fully impact you until the next verse. “If the braids get frizzy on ’em, mean I’m gettin’ busy,” he says, casually flexing at the beginning of “Shell in a Ghost.” As on most of his songs, the writing here jumps between vignettes and scattered ideas about addiction, faith, and his love for the Ethiopian region of Tigray, where he spent his childhood. Producer Alexander Spit’s erratic drums and vocals bring some extra urgency, and when Sideshow jokes, “Niggas singin’ like they Jacques!” it makes immediate impact. –Dylan Green
Listen: Sideshow, “Shell in a Ghost”
Skech185 / Jeff Markey: “Up to Speed”
If you concentrate hard enough, you can hear the scars and feel the caked-over blood in every Skech185 song. The Chicago rapper is a cynical but deeply passionate thinker whose raspy voice gives even the most bare details a sense of life-or-death urgency. Take “Up to Speed,” a spellbinding track from his album with producer Jeff Markey, He Left Nothing for the Swim Back. Skech darts through stories of ill-remembered ex-girlfriends, family history, and contempt for people who blindly critique Chicago gun violence over fuzzy boom-bap that eventually morphs into pixelated madness. The way he shouts “There’s not enough funerals in your voice to make that statement!” skirts the line between rage and sorrow, but not in a way where he could be considered a doomsayer. He doesn’t call people on their bullshit because he’s given up; he cares enough to want to see both our world and his world rearranged for the better. –Dylan Green
Listen: SKECH185 / Jeff Markey, “Up to Speed”
That Mexican OT: “Johnny Dang” [ft. Paul Wall and DRODi]
That Mexican OT, a newcomer from Bay City, Texas with enough charisma to pull Houston rap-and-grill royalty Paul Wall for a guest verse, beams like a movie star in the exuberant video for “Johnny Dang,” clutching the song’s namesake jeweler like they’re brothers. What’s more, OT tells us how his Cadillac is doing jumping jacks and his semi-automatic sounds like bubble wrap. Even an eliminated opp gets a “bubble bath.” It’s all fun and games. “I’m just rhyming words, I don’t even know how to rap,” he titters, showing off his masterful, hilarious approach on the hook of this year's sunniest Southern rap confection. –Adlan Jackson
Listen: That Mexican OT: “Johnny Dang” [ft. Paul Wall and DRODi]
TisaKorean: “uHhH HuH.Mp3”
If TisaKorean is primarily known for firing out dance rap tracks as chaotically as a toddler banging on their toy xylophone, “uHhH HuH.Mp3” stands apart for how much he actually lets the track breathe. Not that the Houston rapper is any less manic. Bouncing off a beat with all the head-knocking lurch of vintage Neptunes, he happily flaunts his influences, mixing up snap and crunk into a slurry of adlibs alongside his girlfriend Sunny Galactic. Pumping up its addictive synth hook as if he were inflating a giant balloon, “uHhH HuH.Mp3” is proof that TisaKorean doesn’t always need to disorient us into dancing—when duty calls, he can also lay down the muscle. –Sam Goldner
Listen: TisaKorean, “uHhH HuH.Mp3”
Vayda: “jenner”
Vayda’s songs, which rarely pass the two-minute mark, blend the serotonin rush of dance music and the brain-massage quality of plugg into succinct packages that dissolve into the psyche like a Sweet Tart. On “jenner,” over a glorious Chippettes-type chorus, the Atlanta rapper casually rattles off bars that could be drawn from the average Sunday morning hangxiety brainspace: She’s strapped for cash, over romantic commitment, and unsure of her sexuality. But instead of wallowing in such worries, she lets the beat set a fire under them until they evaporate into thin air. –Hattie Lindert
Listen: Vayda, “jenner”
Veeze: “Safe 2”
After bubbling in the underground for a while, Veeze scored a breakthrough with Ganger, one of the best rap records of the year. But on the meditative “Safe 2,” he already sounds over all the spoils of success—the flights to Miami, the women, the hundreds and fifties that “look like red beans and rice.” The lull of a fingerpicked guitar and ticking 808 create a somber mood as distant voices laugh, hum, and ad-lib in the background like half-remembered memories. Veeze’s mournful delivery cuts through—it almost sounds like he’s reciting a bittersweet eulogy for his old life. –Hattie Lindert
Listen: Veeze, “Safe 2”
