@Jase Singleton

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The hits and only the hits—this collection brings together great songs from the top of the charts.

Rap Life is home to hip-hop's heavy hitters and its vanguard—the songs that speak to the moment and define the culture today. Few tracks in 2024 embody that ideal the way Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” does. Let us, if just for a moment, forget about the Godzilla vs. King Kong-like back-and-forth with Drake that inspired the song. When “Not Like Us” was unleashed upon an already rapt listening audience, its barrage of quotable catchphrases burrowed deep into the hip-hop consciousness instantly. The song was the answer to a challenge most fans wouldn’t have thought Kendrick even considered, but if he was going to prove he could make a party record, he would do so maintaining the integrity of his practice. And that, both literally and philosophically, made all the difference. The gap between Kendrick Lamar albums has at times tricked casual fans into believing LA doesn’t have an enduring rap hero, but King K-Dot made sure to certify his presence in song. “City is back up, it’s a must we outside!” he declares.

One year after Travis Scott shattered fans’ expectations for his third studio album by dropping his masterpiece, ASTROWORLD, he went out of his way to prove that was no fluke. In the time since the album’s release, Scott may have kept a relatively low profile musically, but just in time for his second ASTROWORLD Festival in Houston in fall 2019, Scott dropped off “Highest in the Room,” a song both dark and electric in the way of so many Travis Scott classics.

The hits and only the hits—this collection brings together great songs from the top of the charts.

It was a hugely successful 2022 for established rap stars like Drake, Kendrick Lamar and 21 Savage. But plenty of young and hungry upstarts emerged, too—not least the brazen GloRilla and Ice Spice, who could both demand the Song of the Summer crown for their respective singles “F.N.F.” and “Munch”. Collectively, they paint a picture of hip-hop in rude health, and only growing stronger for ’23.

Moneybagg Yo’s come-up was anything but quick. The South Memphis MC’s mixtapes date back to 2012, and by the time he’d released his first proper album, 2018’s RESET, he had two separate well-acclaimed mixtape series under his belt (Heartless and Federal). As his star began to rise, though—and his feature price with it—Bagg did something wholly unnecessary in the scope of contemporary hip-hop hitmaking: He continued to improve as a rapper. His reputation as a street-certified truthsayer, along with the relationships he’d cultivate to help spread his message, was long solidified by the time of A Gangsta’s Pain, but that album took Bagg’s presence to another level. And he had no one to thank but himself. Bagg had sharpened his bars and delivery with each release prior, and as he told Apple Music, he relished the time lockdown gave him to master song composition. “I sat down and thought about everything and I made the biggest songs of my career—of my life—in the pandemic,” he said. For Bagg’s efforts, we got arena-ready collaborations like his and Future’s “Hard for the Next,” fun and inventive flows like one he uses on “Shottas,” and a clever addiction/relationship metaphor that reintroduced one of the greatest samples in hip-hop to his generation with “Wockesha.” With A Gangsta’s Pain—and its Reloaded rerelease—Moneybagg Yo was able to stake a claim in rap stardom that won’t soon be dislodged. In conversation with Apple Music ahead of the album’s release, the MC was humble about his process. “I'm giving them everything they love about Moneybagg Yo,” he said. As it turns out, there’s a lot to love.

The prophecy came by way of a guest verse. The year was 2019, and Meek Mill’s “Going Bad,” a reunion of friends turned foes turned friends again, played host to a quick boast that would become legacy: “Back home, smoking legal,” Drake’s verse begins. “I got more slaps than The Beatles.” Three years later, we’d understand his word to be bond. It was in August of 2022, following the release of the DJ Khaled collaboration “STAYING ALIVE,” when Billboard announced Drake to have officially surpassed The Beatles as the artist with the most top five hits in Hot 100 history. Listen to him now, believe him later. Drake would have plenty to say in 2022. Releasing two very different yet equally beloved albums—the dance-music-inclined <i>Honestly, Nevermind</i> and the full-length collab with his “treacherous twin” 21 Savage <i>Her Loss</i>—The Boy was never far from anyone’s favorites playlist. Feature verses like DJ Khaled’s “STAYING ALIVE,” Future’s “WAIT FOR U,” and Brent Faiyaz’s “Wasting Time” have for some time turned friendly link-ups into statement songs for their principal artists, but 2022 was the year veteran MC The Game did the most with the absolute least, turning a Drake voicemail into an interlude for <i>DRILLMATIC: Heart Vs Mind</i> on “DRAKE With the BRAIDS.” The Boy needn’t even be complicit to turn your situation up. Listen to Drake on Rap Life, the playlist at the forefront of hip-hop culture today, and if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

Releasing an album in November usually means one of two things for an artist: The project either gets buried in our seasonal distractions of shopping for loved ones, taking part in hometown reunions, or just closing out the work year with the little bit of concentration you have left—<i>or</i> its bangers persevere until we’re safely out of the holiday fog. You don’t have to guess which category Drake’s <i>Her Loss</i>—his collaborative album with 21 Savage—falls into, because by the time fans were back in the gym making good on New Year’s resolutions, they’d have the presence of mind to appreciate an album that drew a hard line between the “BackOutsideBoyz” and the “Broke Boys.” <i>Her Loss</i> was an omen of sorts, a collection of music that set the tone for a full year of the kind of virtuosic teeth-gnashing that made Drake one of the most revered MCs in the game (despite his penchant for R&B ballads, of course). This year alone, Drake gave us the ransom whisper of “MELTDOWN” with Travis Scott, the roadman bar fest that is “On the Radar Freestyle” with Central Cee, multiple appearances on Young Thug’s <i>BUSINESS IS BUSINESS</i>, and an assist in the return of Stratford, London’s J Hus on “Who Told You.” All of this before his latest opus, the 23-track <i>For All the Dogs</i>, a star-studded effort that features guest verses from some of the most impactful MCs of the era (J. Cole, 21 Savage, Chief Keef, Lil Yachty) and one who may be poised to change the game down the line—his 6-year-old son Adonis. Listen to Drake on Rap Life, the playlist at the forefront of hip-hop culture today, and if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

“We outside” is a popular phrase in rap parlance, one that denotes less a location than the speaker’s state of being. Said individual is active or in the mix; ready for the world and whatever it has in store for them, and then, often quite literally, outside running the streets. But in 2020, we weren’t outside. The pandemic kept us home, where everything that reached us needed to be processed in our most personal spaces. This worked out fine for Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion’s “WAP,” a song that echoed across socials in a way it might not have if relegated strictly to the club, and also for Lil Baby, the MC whose near-perfect “The Bigger Picture” catapulted him, in that moment, from lord of contemporary trap music to voice of a generation. But there was also a 2020 before COVID, and that time is a lot easier to remember if you think about it soundtracked by the “ee-er, ee-er” sound effects of Roddy Ricch’s “The Box.” It becomes painful to think about when we consider the loss of Pop Smoke. The music stopped for the entirety of the rap world when Pop’s light was extinguished on February 19. What he left behind, though, is a legacy as one of Brooklyn’s brightest young stars, his potential realized through Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon, a debut project that sounds as stellar played inside as it would have out. Reacquaint yourself with the dearly departed Brooklyn hero and all the hip-hop that dictated the culture in 2020.