The 20 Best Hip Hop Songs of 2024

There’s still time for Playboi Carti to fulfill his promise of dropping his hotly anticipated album I Am Music this year. The ever-enigmatic musician has been rolling out the album with a steady stream of tracks that allude to yet another reinvention of his sound. “H00DBYAIR,” released in the final days of 2023, set the tone for Carti’s year. As reliable a hitmaker as some of the names tied up in a feud this year, “H00DBYAIR” is a distillation of Carti’s grip over the culture. The track’s marauding bass and menacing drums loomed large over 2024, a beacon to Carti’s loyal horde of adoring fans. Not many artists can hold the world’s attention for an entire year while they tease an album, fewer can build the kind of anticipation Carti has for I Am Music. Just watch how crowds react to hearing the first few notes of “H00DBYAIR,” for proof. —J.I.

Mach Hommy, known for his gritty raps and his anti-fame attitude, is both an unlikely and obvious collaborator for Kaytranada. Each musician is rooted in a DIY ethos, and both infuse their music with their shared Haitian heritage. Their collaboration “#RICHAXXHAITIAN,” the titular track from Mach Hommy’s excellent album from this summer, finds Mach effortlessly finding a new rhythmic pocket in Kaytranda’s buoyant, house-infused production. “A lot of people don’t know the shit that he did on the house-music shit,” Kaytranada told Rolling Stone in his June digital cover story. “He raps on a lot of house joints, and it sounds so effortless and nice.” —J.I.

There are a few ways to measure influence. There’s streams, sales, and awards — and then there’s the amount of friends you know who’ve had the chorus of a track enter their daily lexicon to a meme-able extent. This chaotic, endlessly quotable Travis Scott and Playboi Carti-assisted standout from Metro Boomin and Future’s We Don’t Trust You launched some of the most polarizing slang of 2024. The track’s MVP has to be Carti, who brings a knack for turning a phrase into a Gen Z rallying cry that’s as infectious as it is idiosyncratic. We’ve been muttering “Posted up with my dogs, Scooby-Doo type shit” since March. —Waiss Aremesh

Just a month after Rich Homie Quan’s death, one that sent shockwaves through hip-hop, his family and team released the 35-track posthumous album, Forever Going In. In an interview in the days before he died of an accidental drug overdose, he teased a trove of music he was ready to release. “ I don’t want to drop music on deaf ears,” he said. “One of Quan” is proof of what the Atlanta rap interview had to get off his chest  – reckoning with his time off, drug abuse, troubling relationships, and influence. It’s also proof of how timelessly he could do it. “They probably gon’ think I took off wit’ Gunna flow, but this my cadence and I made it,” he asserts. —M.C.

“I know for a fact I make fucking hits,” Cardi B told Rolling Stone in her June cover story. She’s been hard at work on her long and much-anticipated second album, with “Enough” dropping earlier this year like something of an appetizer — and sure enough, it’s one of her best declarations of how much she’s accomplished and how little shit she’ll take. “I’m in Miami, I pull up on cruise ship, you in Miami four-hoes-to-room shit,” she teases, pulling the insult from experience. Sure enough, it’s the hard-hitting rap track like this one that leveled her up. —M.C.

“Viking” is a prime example of what made SahBabii’s new album Saaheem so exciting when it dropped last month. The song’s rumbling, almost stuttering drums, coupled with SahBabii’s preternatural talent for one-liners like “I give a fuck who like me / Go walk it off, my nigga go hikin’,” makes it an immediate standout. Tyler, the Creator even commented on SahBabii’s Instagram post about the album, writing: “VIKING IS INCREDIBLE.” On social media, the song has emerged as a no-brainer for any clip where someone wants to convey how much of a badass they are. —J.I.

Don Toliver’s vocals find a perfect home on Cash Cobain’s bouncy, drill-infused production. “Attitude,” the smash hit from Don Toliver’s fourth studio album Hardstone Psycho, is a perfect balance of all of its contributors’ strengths. Cobain deftly flips the sample of Snoop Dogg’s Neptunes-produced hit “Beautiful,” and Charlie Wilson, who’s featured on the original Snoop track, shows up to bring the song into a new dimension. —J.I.

The triumphant horns that carry “Back Outside” are definitely fit for Princess Pop That and the Queen of the Souf. Anycia and Latto reimagine the regality of the Atlanta trap of yore with complementary approaches; Anycia’s bars drip with a biting boredom while Latto raps with girlish animation. Listening to them sling unbothered zingers like “You a friendly ass bitch, I’m rude” (Anycia) and “Hoes talk who wore what first / They don’t never wanna talk about a verse” feels a lot like sitting on the throne with them. —M.C.

Central Cee and Lil Baby’s “BAND4BAND” gave us one of the year’s most entertaining viral trends, with British and American rap fans playfully poking fun at one another, all while enjoying the seamless synergy of two stars on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The song’s premise that both Lil Baby and Central Cee are beyond the proverbial “band for band,” i.e. boasting their wealth in thousands, and would instead opt to compare millions, is maybe a reflection on runaway capitalism or inflation. Either way, Central Cee and Lil Baby find a way to make their flexes feel universal. —J.I.

It seems like everyone was in Japan at some point in 2024, including Megan Thee Stallion. “Mamushi,” off her album Megan and featuring the Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba, offered the perfect cross-cultural exchange for the year. With the help of viral TikToks and an irresistible, almost hypnotic beat, “Mamushi” finds Megan rapping across language barriers, creating one of the year’s most memorable songs in the process. —J.I.

We all needed a little escapism this year, and one of the best sources was BossMan Dlow’s “Get in With Me,” a two-minute invitation to ride along in the Miami rapper’s paradise of penthouse Hibachi, club comps, and reckless driving. Over an urgent Dxntemadeit beat, Bossman rhymes with an off-kilter cadence, South Florida twang, and infectious confidence that makes every line feel ripe for virality. Earlier this year, he rhetorically asked detractors if they preferred if he rapped like Kendrick Lamar. If the music’s not going to sound like “Get in With Me,” our answer is hell no. —A.G

The beauty of modern rap is that a song entitled “A Ballad For Homegirls” could’ve gone any which way. It could’ve been a we outside anthem, or a barfest where two spitters went back and forth Kiss-and-Styles style — friendship is a diverse experience, and there are plenty of women in rap to reflect the whole spectrum. But on Rapsody’s Please Don’t Cry single, she linked with Baby Tate to trade reflections on an ain’t shit dude who’s wasting their time. The smooth, BLK ODYSSY and Tave-produced single sounds ripe for some pensive reflection over an Olivia Pope wine glass, and both girls’ verses matched that energy. —A.G

If there’s one thing Ice Spice is going to do, it’s deliver a bop that captures the zeitgeist. Even as she faced a year mired in controversy (“I don’t think I’ve ever had a moment of strictly praise. I think, through it all, there was always a lot of hate,” she told Rolling Stone in her July cover story), Ice managed to deliver with “Did it First,” from her album Y2K. The song has that immediately infectious quality that Ice Spice has proven so adept at creating. And she’s joined by Central Cee, who very clearly understood the assignment, offering up a cleanly constructed flow about infidelity, believable enough to fuel dating rumors online. —J.I.

This year, acts like GloRilla, Latto, and Ice Spice traveled back to the 2000s to make rap songs that hit hard with nostalgia, but Sexyy Red became a true queen of nostalgia with “Get It Sexyy.” The song channeled the snap and crunk music on which she and her ace producer, Tay Keith, were raised (snap music all-stars Soulja Boy and Fabo make perfect cameos in the delightful throwback music video, too). —M.C.

“Whatsapp (Wassam)” is a palpable showing of defiance from Gunna paired with a clean Turbo beat that feels like a slicker, richer take on Drake, Young Thug, and Future’s “Way 2 Sexy.” Gunna’s syllables pop with tinges of disgust as he distinguishes himself from “kid[s] like my baby,” so much so that even he seems to need to take a step back and remember who he is. “But fuck that, look at my accomplishments/Let’s check out my style, astonishin’.” A little bit of vexation on top of Gunna’s characteristic suavity makes for one of his catchiest songs of late. —M.C.

GloRilla has been known to use the recording studio booth as her pulpit, sneaking benedictions into her biggest hits. On “TGIF,” she pivots to prophecy, forecasting the weather for every summer Friday on the 2024 calendar: “It’s 7 p.m. Friday / It’s 95 degrees.” The urgent strings and horns of Zenjikozen’s production evoke a breaking news weather report. The rest of the song provides the perfect recipe for a night out for a single woman in hot weather: lightly dressed, no relationship commitments, stocked up on libations, and equipped with an abundance of disposable income. —Elise Brisco

Doechii hops on the therapy couch in her mind to revisit her past five years on this highlight from her 2024 mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal. The Florida MC’s point-by-point retelling of her escapades (which, the Florida MC told Rolling Stone in October, was inspired by Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story”) includes breakups and breakdowns, as well as her memorable fantasy of turning one ex’s “guts into soup beans.” Her gimlet-eyed view of recent goings-on — including sex, drugs, and hip-hop stardom — is self-lacerating and witty even at its darkest. —M.J.

Any one of Cash Cobain’s slizzy anthems could’ve made this year’s list, but “Dunk Contest” feels like the catalyst of his momentous 2024. Riding a warm loop, the Queens-Bronx rapper croons through the list of women he wants to get slutty with. There’s Destiny, Mia, Jada, and many others, including Marni, who’s apparently so special he doesn’t want to publicly say he wants to “get in your drawers ’til my dick is soft” at first — but he does anyway. We’ve all been there, but few have been able to turn that risky text into an instant classic single. —A.G

The “Never Lose Me” remix is particularly thrilling because it brings together three women in eras that challenge any notion of their success being serendipitous. Flo’s girlish melodies here are so bite-worthy that the two superstars did just that; SZA gives nice-nasty a whole new meaning; Cardi B flips Flo’s line “Never had a bitch like me in your life” to “That bitch could never be me in her life,” then spits like she was supposed to have tapped out eight bars earlier but couldn’t help herself. It’s yet another indication of rap-girl supremacy. —M.C.

Few songs have defined a moment as thoroughly as Kendrick Lamar’s eviscerating Drake diss “Not Like Us.” After its release in May, the song has been omnipresent, sitting atop the charts for 21 weeks, soundtracking everything from sports games to campaign rallies, and earning five Grammy nominations including for Song of the Year. The Mustard-produced track elegantly flips a sample of Monk Higgins’ “I Believe To My Soul” into an undeniable West Coast hit. Among the barrage of tracks exchanged during Kendrick and Drake’s war of words this year, “Not Like Us” is probably second to “Euphoria” when it comes to the traditional types of jabs you might expect in a rap beef. Instead, “Not Like Us” achieves the more impressive feat of cultivating a bona-fide cultural moment against another rapper. A death blow wrapped in a pop-crossover hit. The beef might’ve ended more opaquely had things been left at “Meet The Grahams,” Kendrick’s formidable response to Drake’s equally solid “Family Matters.” But from the moment the world heard “I see dead people” at the start of “Not Like Us,” the trajectory of rap history was altered, and Kendrick’s place at the top of the genre was cemented. —J.I.