The 10 Best Rap Albums Of 2024
From the moment he popped out for a guest verse on Future & Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” 2024 belonged to Kendrick Lamar. After declaring and winning a war against Drake — and landing a couple #1 singles in the process — that much was clear. But Kendrick wasn’t the only rapper who came through in 2024, even if all his press and outright dominance makes it feel that way.
Emerging from Top Dawg Entertainment’s eccentric creator factory, Doechii crystallized her status as a proverbial next up with Alligator Bites Never Heal, a project that was incisive as it was sprawling. GloRilla overcame a middling 2023 to serve up a series of unimpeachable bangers and two projects (Ehhthang Ehhthang. Glorious) that proved she’s one of rap’s great young hitmakers. BigXThaPlug reaffirmed his status as the best young rapper to come out of Texas in years, with his writerly storytelling, flow dexterity and dense charisma helping make Take Care one of the most compelling — and surprisingly successful — LPs of the year. Sahbabii pulled up with another heater, and so did MIKE and Boldy James and Benny The Butcher. But you know how this goes; some tough omissions had to be made when boiling down the year’s hip-hop releases to the very best.
So here they are: the top 10 rap albums of 2024.
While his Metro Boomin joint albums grabbed most of the attention, Mixtape Pluto is the best project Future put out this year — and his best in years. The truth is, his last several offerings have been middling, with the rapper’s genius receding into a haze of hollow d-boy catchphrases, an issue only fortified by less inventive choruses. On this one, he taps into his raw, visceral songwriting powers for tracks that can be deeply sinister or profoundly vulnerable. Powered by rumbling 808s, a sinister bassline, and a layered hook, “Lil Demon” sounds like Future’s really riding around with a little demon. With its unnerving murmurs, “Plutoski” is a discordant fog that’s at once haunting and irresistible. It’s not just his vocal performance, though. “Lost My Dawg” and “Too Fast” see Hendrix wrestle with varying forms of personal tragedy, with his transparent bars merging with his mournful intonations to once again reveal the beating heart beneath rap’s toxic king.
From her absurdist raps to her name itself, Sexyy Red is an artist that evokes a barrage of striking adjectives. So much so, that it’s easy to forget her most mundane, yet applicable descriptor: reliable. In a mainstream career that’s lasted almost exactly two years, the St. Louis provocateur’s proven an unimpeachable ability to generate slappers, with tracks like “Pound Town” and “SkeeYee” becoming indelible playlist staples within six months of her emergence. She reaffirms that rep with In Sexyy We Trust. Powered by a pummeling soundscape and an interactive refrain that encourages crowd participation, “Get It Sexyy” is arguably the best baddie theme song of 2024. Meanwhile, the Drake-assisted “U My Everything” turns some amateurish vocals into something simultaneously sweet and juvenile — like a love song you recite for your new boyfriend on the playground. Distilled through a svelte, 33-minute package, it doesn’t leave you room to escape Sexyy Red’s charisma. While she can be sweet, you’re only ever a few bars away from her threatening to stab an opp with a fork — a raw balance that ensures the project lives up to its name.
You wouldn’t really be wrong to say that all Cash Cobain raps about is sex. But by objecting to his singleminded focus, you’d also be missing the point. With projects like Play Cash Cobain, the Bronx rapper-producer turns sex puns and throwback R&B samples into self-contained adventures too extravagant to become redundant. Skittering over his customary lasers, Cobain can turn fluttering cadences and a classic cocktail into his own casually raunchy brand of foreplay (“Rum Punch”). In between that, he can play around with Tyrese clips (“Act Like”), slang (“Fisherrr”), and Laila! tracks (“Problem”) for songs that are kinetic, playful, and inescapably infectious.
Tierra Whack doesn’t make albums as much as she creates worlds. Released in March, her latest planetary design, World Wide Whack is its own micro-universe. Here, she doubles up on all the experimental whimsy, pathos, and dexterity she flaunted on her debut project nearly seven years ago. On “Ms. Behave,” she pulls from Missy Elliott’s quirky anthems and Kendrick Lamar’s twitchy intonations in a futuristic theme song for Amazons. Moving between songs like “Shower Song” and “27 Club,” her vocal elasticity can emit childlike euphoria or damaged innocence. It’s a masterful tone control that, along with malleable songwriting instincts, enables her to pull off sprightly rippity raps, post-punk, and dreary, surrealistic R&B with equal comfort in her wondrous coloring book of sound.
Twelve years removed from noting his own popularity with “Love Sosa,” Chief Keef’s Almighty So 2 gave fans plenty more to love. Laced with absurdist humor, Lex Luger-esque beats, overpowering choruses, and moments of crystalline lucidity, the project is a polished version of everything that helped make Keef a legend. Tracks like “Treat Myself” evoke vintage Gucci Mane. If that one is a raucous joyride, then the G Herbo-assisted “Neph Nem” is a hellish demolition, with Keef’s plain-stated savagery emitting all the menace of peak Chicago drill. Throw in flourishes of introspection, and it’s clear Sosa is as mighty as ever.
LL Cool J was never fond of the term “comeback,” but, after dropping his best album in 25 or 30 years, he’ll have to forgive us. Layered in some of the most ambitious concepts of LL’s four-decade career, THE FORCE is the resurrection you forgot you wanted, with Q-Tip’s retro surrealistic production conjuring LL’s MC spirit from the land of mid-cop shows to distill righteous fury (“Spirit Of Cyrus”) and breathless exhibitions for flow dexterity (“Murdergram Deux”). Ferocious, inventive, and intermittently charming, THE FORCE proves that, decades removed from his commercial apex, LL can still knock you out.
Look: those Big 3 conversations are annoying, but if you’re going to have them, Tyler, The Creator will have to be included. After dropping a series of shapeshifting albums between 2017 and 2022, the Odd Future founder leveled up again with Chromakopia, an electric exercise in flamboyant versatility. Here, Tyler’s mad genius is splayed out all around, like a kid who’s got too many toys for his room to stay neat. But somehow it does. On “Sticky,” he taps in with Sexyy Red, GloRilla, and Lil Wayne for a bop that’s midway between a cheerleading chant and club anthem. Meanwhile, on tracks like “Like Him” he turns off the irony for some of the most earnest introspection of his career.
If you were only reading Roc Marciano’s lyrics, you’d say there’s a good chance he’s the coolest street rapper alive. When you hear him actually rap the lyrics atop the luxuriant beats he made himself, you’ll come to the conclusion he is indeed the coolest. Such is the case with Marciology, the latest in an endless stream of virtuosic releases from the NY legend. Here, you’ll hear tales of an icy gangster who needs silk sheets or he can’t sleep. If you cross him, he’ll make sure you can’t either; bullet holes in your daughter’s bedroom door will do that. “That’s the warning when you ignore the rules,” he spits at a tone just above a whisper. That calm is paired with hyper-specific writerly details and cinematic production that frames his vignettes in opulent blockboy gravitas, a constellation that ensures Roc is always operating in his own solar system.
It’s easy to get lost in the euphoria of recency bias, but don’t get it twisted: Blue Lips is ScHoolboy Q at his best, which automatically makes it one of the greatest rap albums of the year. As visceral as it is technically refined, the LP swirls all of Q’s performatory gifts with sleekly inventive production, springy couplets, and rare lucidity. Meanwhile, with their controlled yet overwhelming emotionality, tracks like “Cooties” and the Mac Miller tribute “Blueslides” hit like teardrops. Embedded with forlorn flute, pathos, and a propulsive Project Pat sample, “Thank God 4 Me” is a kinetic gem that manages to be as celebratory as it is reflective. Distilled through shapeshifting murmurs, somersaulting rhyme patterns, and an auteur’s directorial control, Blue Lips is an album you gotta be thankful for.
Conventional wisdom stipulates that it’s hard to dominate your genre without a new album, but through this past November, Kendrick Lamar did exactly that. Before the summer was over, he’d bested the world’s most popular rapper with two diss tracks that peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. His win was so resounding, “Not Like Us” so massive, that it inspired a West Coast version of “We Are The World” in the form of his livestreamed concert the Pop Out. The scorched-earth campaign earned him a spot as the headliner for next year’s Super Bowl halftime performance and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year. So the album that followed felt like the best kind of overkill.
Released near the end of November, GNX is a sprawling yet California-centric LP that funnels all of Kendrick’s technical gifts and eccentric artistry into a micro-monument to rap excellence. Here, he shifts between euphoric hyphy (“Squabble Up”) and dreamy funk (“Dodger Blue”) for tracks that can be righteously furious (“Wacced Out Murals), icy cool (“Hey Now”), or meditative and spiritual (“Reincarnated”). It’s a range permitted by Kendrick’s tonal control and an endless stream of flow structures that keep things kinetic and fresh. Whether he’s channeling Nas (“Man In The Garden”) or Drakeo The Ruler (“Peakaboo”), Kendrick renders the varied shades of the West Coast diaspora with primal power and rarefied grace.
