@Andrew Herbert

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Here’s one for the heads. From new drops by emerging voices to regional hits on their way up to just-released bangers from the game’s biggest stars, this playlist collects hip-hop that’s just inches from the spotlight: not just what’s good, but what’s next. Our editors update these picks regularly, so if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

Nas once accused JAY Z of getting out-rapped by Eminem on his own song. He didn't mention that Mathers had also made the beat. Starting with 2001's menacing "Renegade", the Detroit MC began spreading the wealth among his peers. Ominous even when they're celebratory, tracks like G-Unit's “My Buddy” make chintzy synths sound downright foreboding, with looming keys battling big, crisp drums.

Atlanta rap has evolved from boot-rattling regional scene to avant-garde pop sensation to the new sound of hip-hop America. Though its bass has been rumbling in cars and clubs since the late ’80s, it became one of hip-hop’s biggest creative forces in the ’90s and 2000s thanks to the lateral-minded boom of Outkast, the pop production of Jermaine Dupri and the high-octane crunk of Lil Jon. Eventually spawning trap and new forms of vocal calligraphy, Atlanta became perhaps the most influential city on hip-hop’s map. Time and time again, the South has had something to say.

Today’s rappers have inherited the spirit of B-boy pioneers who broke through cultural barriers while exhibiting the passionate verve needed to survive modern times. Fresh-faced rookies and crews from across Japan are continuously reinventing the genre, often with little more than a smartphone and a great hook. This playlist looks at the Reiwa era through the voices of a new hip-hop generation.

Carns Hill likes to keep you on your toes. His speciality is setting delicate chiming loops over brooding bass, as in Youngs Teflon's “Back On” and his own “Whips”. His drill beats are busy and skittish, a chattery counterpoint to the melancholy melodies—most effective in combination with loops of ghostly, time-stretched vocal samples, as in “Skrt” and 67's “#Waps”.

Mystifying hip-hop pioneers IAM emerged from the Marseille scene in the early '90s and changed the game with a metaphysical style incorporating allusions to ancient Egypt, cosmology and Arab-West relations—over the dopest boom-bap beats. As a group and as individuals, they've released albums, singles, collabs and mixtapes. This playlist digs deep to uncover the hidden gems that made IAM legendary.

Few rappers have fulfilled the party-starting promise of hip-hop's origins as triumphantly as Ludacris, whose manic, animated, sometimes comical style defined popular hip-hop for much of the '00s. His voice jumps from the speakers, whether over dance-floor bangers like "Southern Hospitality" or the horn-driven, Latin-flavoured pop of "Rollout (My Business)". He is as clever when lascivious (the explicit "What's Your Fantasy") as when riding the oddball carnival of "Number One Spot". And his success has proved once and for all that hip-hop can conquer the charts without creative compromise.

You can't tell the story of southern hip-hop without mentioning the Three 6 Mafia. Founded by Juicy J, Lord Infamous and DJ Paul, the Memphis group became hometown heroes with their pioneering crunk sound. Their indie label, Hypnotized Minds, also brought through local artists like Gangsta Boo and Project Pat. After serving the underground scene with a stream of menacing music throughout the '90s, the group finally cracked the mainstream with a triumphant Oscar winning contribution to the Hustle and Flow soundtrack in 2006.