The most memorable moment in rap of 2024 isn’t an album, it’s the multi-song rap battle between Kendrick Lamar and Drake that culminated in the release of the year’s most world-conquering rap song, “Not Like Us.” But rap had so much more to offer this year besides that history-in-the-making moment, including a ton of great albums, just one of which was made by the victor of that battle. Rappers in the home-recording and streaming era are also more prolific than ever, making the long list of rap albums that came out this year nearly impossible to keep up with, but we did our best and then narrowed things down to a list of our 30 favorites. This year brought us great albums from established favorites, rising stars, and underground gems, and the definition of “rap” in 2024 is broader than ever. No matter what era, region, or subgenre of rap you prefer, there was something released in 2024 for you.

Read on for our list…

30. ShrapKnel & Controller 7 – Nobody Planning To Leave (Backwoodz)

For their third album in four years as ShrapKnel, New York/Philly rappers Curly Castro and PremRock connected with West Coast producer Controller 7, following albums primarily produced by Steel Tipped Dove and ELUCID. Controller 7 crafts a backdrop that ranges from spacey psychedelia to clamoring jazz to hard-hitting boom bap, and the bars from Castro, Prem, and their guests (Open Mike Eagle, ELUCID, Breezly Brewin, and more) are just as dizzying and unpredictable as the beats.

29. Freddie Gibbs – You Only Die 1nce (ESGN/AWAL)

After making his long-overdue major label debut and winking at any sellout accusations with 2022’s $oul $old $eparately, Freddie Gibbs returned to mixtape mode with this year’s You Only Die 1nce. It’s a quick 13-song project with no guests and no crossover attempts, just Freddie hitting the booth and rapping his ass off.

28. bbymutha – sleep paralysis (True Panther)

A trip to London inspired Atlanta-via-Chattanooga rapper bbymutha’s True Panther debut, which marries her own Southern rap flavor to a backdrop of underground UK-style dance beats. It’s a very rewarding blend, and it made for a rap record like very others released this year.

27. Benny the Butcher – Everybody Can’t Go (Def Jam)

In what sounds like a spiritual sequel to 2020’s Hit Boy-produced Burden of Proof, Benny the Butcher’s Def Jam debut Everybody Can’t Go finds him cleaning up his gritty boom bap revival and coming out with his version of those early 2000s records by rappers like Jadakiss and Cam’ron that were lush and polished enough for the radio with bars that still went as hard as their underground tracks. Production is split between Hit-Boy and The Alchemist, and Jadakiss himself appears here, as do Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, usual Griselda and Black Soprano Family suspects like Westside Gunn, Conway the Machine, Stove God Cooks, Armani Caesar, and Rick Hyde, and more.

26. Previous Industries – Service Merchandise (Merge)

After Open Mike Eagle collaborated with his friends Video Dave and Still Rift on 2022’s A Tape Called Component System With The Auto Reverse and 2023’s Another Triumph of Ghetto Engineering, the three of them decided to form a group together, Previous Industries. Inspired by late ’80s / early ’90s rap groups like Native Tongues, Wu-Tang, and The Alkaholiks, they aimed to make a record that sounds like a rap group “that actually hang out with each other and rap in the same room,” and that’s exactly what they did. The unique Open Mike Eagle flair is all over Service Merchandise, as is the chemistry that only comes from real-life human collaboration.

25. El Cousteau – Merci, Non Merci (self-released)

DC rapper El Cousteau gets assists from MIKE and Earl Sweatshirt on his new album Merci, Non Merci (the latter of whom went semi-viral for his “Free Gaza, we on the corner like Israelites” verse on this album), and I think anyone entering this album because of Cousteau’s famous friends will leave a fan of Cousteau himself. It ranges from chill jazzy moments to trap bangers to melodic/soulful songs and beyond, and Cousteau’s magnetic, shapeshifting delivery is perfect for all of it.

24. Megan Thee Stallion – MEGAN (Hot Girl)

2024 will always be remembered as the year Megan was in her snake era. A string of slithering standout tracks (lead singles “Hiss,” “Boa,” “Cobra,” and then album cut “Rattle”) led up to her independently-released MEGAN, which was delivered with the confidence of the self-made superstar Megan has become. With a little help from her increasingly-frequent collaborator GloRilla, home state heroes UGK, Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba, and more, Megan throws a Texas rap party that has some of her most fun songs to date. She kept the party going even longer with 13 more songs on MEGAN: ACT II, and I won’t pretend there’s no filler here, but the highs are some of the highest of her career thus far.

23. Chuck Strangers – A Forsaken Lover’s Plea (Lex Records)

Pro Era member and frequent Joey Bada$$ collaborator Chuck Strangers has been at it for over a decade, but he really ramped up his solo career in recent years and A Forsaken Lover’s Plea is his biggest breakthrough (and possibly best) project yet. Following in the eerie, slowed-down boom bap path of hometown heroes like Ka and Roc Marciano, Chuck raps his way through minimal soundscapes with a commanding lyrical style that makes A Forsaken Lover’s Plea sound like the ’90s and the future all at once.

22. Navy Blue – Memoirs In Armour (self-released)

With no guests and pretty much no hooks, Navy Blue delivers one personal, poetic screed after the next over a lush backdrop of smoky jazz piano and chopped-up soul samples. Similar to past collaborators like Earl Sweatshirt, billy woods, MIKE, and Ka, Memoirs In Armour is rap music that requires deep listening and sinks in more and more over time. With just 10 songs in 26 minutes, it’s easy to just keep hitting that repeat button, and it gets better and better every time you do.

21. Ice Spice – Y2K! (10K Projects/Capitol)

Considering it quickly became clear that Ice Spice’s twist on Bronx drill translates damn near effortlessly into pop music (“Boy’s a liar Pt. 2,” “Barbie World”), it would’ve surprised absolutely no one if her “official debut album” (following her breakout EP Like..?) sounded like a push away from her roots and towards the pop machine. So it’s pretty amazing that it’s not that at all. Y2K! is basically a Bronx drill tape, with all the regionality and attitude that you’d expect from one (and it’s pretty much the same length as the deluxe edition of Like..?). Just like on her early singles, Ice Spice’s unmistakable charisma and insanely quotable one-liners over RiotUSA’s floor-shaking production is all Y2K! needed to continue the rapper’s global takeover. Nothing outside of the Central Cee-featuring adultery duet “Did It First” comes even close to pop crossover, and even that song only succeeds because of Ice Spice’s trademark charm.

20. Cavalier – Different Type Time (Backwoodz)

Cavalier released three great projects in 2024, the best of which was Different Type Time. (The other two were the second installment of his Death Tape series with Quelle Chris and his Child Actor-produced album CINE.) Over a lush backdrop of pitched-up soul samples, jazz-informed boom bap, and moody electronics, Cav weaves together tales inspired by both his Brooklyn upbringing and his adopted hometown of New Orleans, with metaphor and wordplay that takes multiple listens to unpack and an in-the-pocket delivery that sounds better and better each time.

19. Maxo Kream – Personification (Stomp Down)

Maxo Kream is back with his fourth album in a row of trauma-unpacking storyteller rap and subwoofer-shaking Texas rap bangers. As has become his trademark, he weaves in-depth personal tales in and out of hooks you can hum and beats you can dance to, always making for songs that are instantly-satisfying on first listen but even more impactful over time. He remains not just a great rapper but also a great curator, with a cast of guests that help elevate Personification to the next level, including eccentrics like Tyler, the Creator and Denzel Curry, and fellow Texas rappers like BigXthaPlug, That Mexican OT, and Z-Ro. (Not to mention a Frou Frou sample that makes for one of Personification‘s most memorable moments.) Personification finds Maxo sticking to a formula that’s now worked for four albums straight, and it’s pretty remarkable how fresh he sounds and how much more he has to say each time.

18. LL Cool J – The Force (LL Cool J Inc/Def Jam/Virgin)

I don’t know who saw this coming, but LL Cool J released his best album in about 30 years. It’s his first album at all in 11 years, and even before that, he had sorta become someone whose ’80s and ’90s classics (“Rock the Bells,” “Mama Said Knock You Out,” “I’m Bad,” etc) remained widely influential but who had ultimately become better known in present-day as an actor or an all-around public personality than as a rapper who might release a hot new album. The Force doesn’t find LL trying to modernize and crack the charts the way his lukewarmly-received 2000s album did. Instead, it finds him reasserting himself as a pioneer of hip hop’s golden age, with an album that offers up a fresh update on the sounds of LL’s glory days. It was entirely produced by fellow veteran Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, who helps make The Force one of LL’s most luscious-sounding albums, and also one of his most cohesive. (It also features an impressive cast of guests, including Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Nas, Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Rick Ross, Saweetie, and more.) It doesn’t actually sound like anything he released in the ’80s or early ’90s, but it sounds like something that could have come out in that era, and perhaps like something he might’ve wanted to make in that era if he was faced with less pressure to deliver a hit. His rapping remains full of tact and force (no pun intended), and the album doubles as proof that a living legend’s career is never set in stone if they don’t want it to be. It’s never too late for anyone to reinvent themselves.

17. Sexyy Red – In Sexyy We Trust (Rebel/Gamma)

Sexyy Red has way more haters than she deserves, and she’s having way too much fun to care. After the absolute blast of her 2023 breakthrough Hood Hottest Princess, she kept the fire alive by following it less than 12 months later with In Sexyy We Trust. Like its predecessor, it’s a series of bangers that marry Sexyy’s St. Louis drawl to a backdrop of Atlanta-style trap beats (mostly from Tay Keith), and it serves as a reminder that sometimes the best rap records are the ones that don’t take themselves too seriously.

16. Heems – LAFANDAR & VEENA (Veena Sounds)

To call 2024 a comeback year for Heems would be an understatement. The Das Racist/Swet Shop Boys member closed the nine-year gap since his last solo album (and seven-year gap since he last released any project at all) with not one but two new albums, LAFANDAR and VEENA, and both stand tall next to any of his best work. The two albums also have very different tones. On LAFANDAR, Heems sounds lively and hungry and often funny over a series of neck-snapping hip hop beats and South Asian samples from producer Lapgan, while VEENA offers up Heems’ most reflective, serious songs to date and ropes in jazz musician Vijay Iyer, putting the final nail in the coffin of the idea that Heems is a “joke-rapper.” VEENA is full of voicemail skits from other icons of the South Asian diaspora (including Riz Ahmed, No Doubt’s Tony Kanal, Hasan Minhaj, Arooj Aftab whose NYC show in Central Park he also guested at this year, and more), while LAFANDAR has a who’s who of underground guest rappers (including Kool Keith, Open Mike Eagle, Quelle Chris, Your Old Droog, Saul Williams, Blu, Fatboi Sharif, Sir Michael Rocks of The Cool Kids, and Sonnyjim). At this point, no “who’s who” list is complete without Heems himself.

15. Rapsody – Please Don’t Cry (Jamla/Roc Nation)

Rapsody remains “under-appreciated but still the most respected,” as she herself puts it on Please Don’t Cry. Your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper does what she does best across this 22-song, 65-minute LP, with one jaw-dropping bar after the next and guest appearances from some of the living legends that respect her craft. (In this case that includes Erykah Badu and Lil Wayne.) This is some of the North Carolina rapper’s most personally vulnerable material to date, with tear-jerking real life tales that’ll leave you realizing “Please Don’t Cry” isn’t just a clever title.

14. Your Old Droog – Movie (self-released)

The insanely prolific Brooklyn boom bap revivalist Your Old Droog delivers one of his most cinematic statements with the fittingly-titled Movie. Over a great selection of ’90s-style beats from Just Blaze, Madlib, Harry Fraud, Conductor Williams, and more, Droog does what he does best, delivering knockout punchlines, memorable pop culture references, and creative rhymes that could make his heroes shit their pants. Method Man and Denzel Curry show up on “DBZ,” and otherwise Droog holds his own for the entirety of the LP.

13. JPEGMAFIA – I Lay Down My Life For You (Peggy/AWAL)

JPEGMAFIA is back with his boldest, most genre-busting album yet. The mostly-self-produced album offers up a Judgement Night-style rap/rock crossover that reaffirms why Peggy is a rapper that was a natural fit on a Turnstile tour and Outbreak Fest, along with ’60s psychedelic pop pastiche, RZA-esque rap beats, Daft Punk-worthy stadium electronics, and moments that are too futuristic to compare to the greats of the past. Peggy’s rapping has just as wide a scope as his production, and he brings in just two likeminded guest rappers who deliver all-timer verses: Vince Staples and Denzel Curry. I Lay Down My Life For You is a head-trip from its blaring opener to its flower-child comedown, with nary a dull moment.

12. Vince Staples – Dark Times (Def Jam/Blacksmith)

Vince Staples has always had a lot to say, and this time he’s not hiding any of it behind maximalist EDM beats, high-concept sound collage, or singalong hooks. The somber, slower-paced, relatively brief album puts Vince’s distinct delivery and vivid lyricism front and center, with subject matter and a muted presentation that both live up to Dark Times‘ title. The album is his final release with Def Jam and I don’t know if that means he’ll be leaving the major label world altogether, but it’d make sense if he does. Vince has been moving further and further away from mainstream trends over the years, and Dark Times is basically an underground rap record on a major label budget. It serves as a reminder that Vince isn’t just one of the best rappers of his generation, but one of the most unique too. 2024 had a lot of good rap records, and none of them sounded anything like this one does.

11. Roc Marciano – Marciology & The Skeleton Key (Pimpire/Marci)

Roc Marciano is the kind of rapper that makes you come to him. He doesn’t tour much, he doesn’t bother with playlist-friendly singles or career-boosting guest verses, and his albums are growers and slow-burners by design. He was making eerie, New York-centric boom bap revival before it was cool (again), and even as he increasingly gets recognized as an important forebear to the current wave of underground rap, he accepts that title with a calm, cool, and collected shrug and gets back to making the same records he’d make whether or not anyone was listening. 2024 saw him release two sinister, gripping records in his trademark style, Mariology (largely produced by Roc Marci himself) and The Skeleton Key (entirely produced by The Alchemist, who also helmed two tracks on Marciology), and both serve as reminders that–no matter how influential he gets–no one does it like Roc Marciano himself. 14 years and over 10 albums removed from his gradually-game-changing 2010 debut Marcberg, Roc sounds as closed off from the world as ever.

10. MAVI – Shadowbox (Mavi 4 Mayor)

Five years after arriving on the scene with one of the finest debut abstract rap albums in recent memory, MAVI breaks out of the “abstract” world entirely with his most direct, personal, and vulnerable album to date. Shadowbox ranges from jazzy to dancey to orchestral to boom bap to glitched-out bliss in just 33 and a half minutes, all of which MAVI tackles with some of the most honest lyricism I’ve heard all year. His tuneful raps find him opening up about the death of a loved one, a breakup, mental health, alcoholism, and family issues in a way that blurs the line between poetic and devastatingly blunt. It’s proof that MAVI’s music hits even harder without all the haze.

9. Ka – The Thief Next To Jesus (Iron Works)

Ka had us hanging on his every word up until his very last one. He unexpectedly passed away at age 52 in October, less than two months after releasing The Thief Next To Jesus, which now serves as the swan song for the former Natural Elements member’s 16-year-long second act, a bittersweet conclusion to one of the most remarkable runs in all of underground rap. As the title implies, Christianity largely informs these songs, from the gospel-infused backdrop to the stream-of-consciousness screeds that find Ka exploring the way religion relates to race, freedom, and life itself. In true Ka fashion, it’s a hushed, patient album that sounds gorgeous on a passive listen and heart-stopping on a close one.

8. BigXthaPlug – Take Care (UnitedMasters)

There’s a new face of Texas rap and he goes by the name of BigXthaPlug. He’s got a regional flavor as unmistakable as the scent of Texas barbecue, with a backdrop of trunk-rattling trap beats infused with vintage funk, soul, and gospel samples, and a Southern drawl with enough country grammar to land BigX a spot on the Shaboozey album. On his sophomore album Take Care, he holds your attention for 15 songs in 31 minutes without a single feature. His charm, his stories, and his subtle hooks are more than enough.

7. Mach-Hommy – #RICHAXXHAITIAN (self-released)

Over a decade and a gazillion releases into his career, Newark rapper Mach-Hommy played his first-ever solo show this year, at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center. And despite having so much long-beloved material, he opted to perform his new album #RICHAXXHAITIAN in full, a bold yet unsurprisingly effective decision. The new album finds Mach at the peaks of his powers, and it’s been a standout all year, ever since it dropped in mid-May. True to his ever-appealing form, the multi-lingual, first generation Haitian-American raps in English, French, and Kreyòl as he paints a picture that ranges from autobiographical tales to the current crises in Haiti and Gaza. The largely-self-produced, boom bap-inspired backdrop shifts around just enough that #RICHAXXHAITIAN never sounds too repetitive, and Mach fires on all cylinders as he goes bar for bar with fellow greats like Black Thought, Roc Marciano, Tha God Fahim, and Your Old Droog. Outside of the political/social commentary in his lyrics, Mach continues to comment on the social media-era accessibility of celebrities with his elusiveness, and on the value of music itself with his limited, drastically-overpriced physical releases that always sell out. It wouldn’t keep working if he didn’t keep releasing such great records like this one.

6. ELUCID – Revelator (Fat Possum)

Somehow, ELUCID is only getting weirder. The Armand Hammer member’s latest solo album uses noise glitch, and live drums to create the loudest, most abrasive backdrop that he’s ever rapped over, and his third-eye-open bars sound even more intense in this setting. You could semi-accurately call it a cross between Shabazz Palaces and Death Grips, but an “X meets Y” namedrop doesn’t really capture how startlingly original this music is.

5. GloRilla – Glorious & Ehhthang Ehhthang (CMG/Interscope)

After a breakout year in 2022 and a slightly quieter 2023, GloRilla was more dominant than ever in 2024, with the release of not one but two full-length projects–her Ehhthang Ehhthang mixtape and her “official debut album” Glorious–that found the Memphis rapper proving herself as a force that’s here to stay. The two projects spawned a string of delightfully inescapable hits (“Yeah Glo!,” “Wanna Be,” “TGIF,” “Hollon,” “Whatchu Know About Me”) that all find Glo staying true to the type of tough, catchy, Memphis rap vibes that defined her surprise breakthrough single “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” two years earlier. Appearances by Megan Thee Stallion, Sexyy Red, Latto, and others spice up these tracks with verses that figuratively and sometimes literally affirm that it’s Glo’s moment. To quote Megan, get ’em Glo!

4. Doechii – Alligator Bites Never Heal (TDE/Capitol)

Throughout Doechii’s sprawling 19-song project Alligator Bites Never Heal, she mocks the idea that only boom bap is “real rap” and also delivers some of the best boom bap released this year. She stages a conversation between herself and her therapist, culminating in a breathing exercise that doubles as the project’s most memorable moment. She raps, sings, and remains constantly unpredictable, never sticking to one flow or even one genre of music for more than a few moments. Her versatility extends beyond the album, into booming festival sets, a Tiny Desk concert with a jazz band, and a vivid television performance that find Doechii interpreting the Alligator songs in multiple ways. Outside of these 19 songs, she also spent 2024 delivering one of the year’s most iconic rap verses (on her and Tyler, the Creator’s bisexual anthem “Balloon”), releasing her most exhilarating single to date (the house-infused “Alter Ego” with JT from City Girls), and picking up a Best New Artist Grammy nom. Four years into a steady rise that began with her breakthrough 2020 single “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake,” Doechii’s never been more unstoppable.

3. ScHoolboy Q – Blue Lips (TDE/Interscope)

As the generation of artists that turned rap on its head ~15 years ago become the genre’s new elder statespeople, it’s been thrilling to watch the ways many of the greats have grown with their music rather than out of it. Kendrick Lamar turned personal growth into a concept album and then turned his beef with Drake into the year’s most world-conquering rap song. Tyler, the Creator completed his transformation from skate rat to art-rap auteur with this year’s CHROMAKOPIA, another self-reflective concept album (that you’ll read more about soon), and ScHoolboy Q was by both of their sides. He was there on stage when Kendrick made the live debut of “Not Like Us” (five times in a row), and he appears on one of the best songs on Tyler’s album, “Thought I Was Dead.” But before doing either of those things, he released one of his best albums yet with Blue Lips. The 18-song, 57-minute project ranges from punk-rap ragers like the Rico Nasty collab “Pop” to meditative jazz-rap. Like his aforementioned peers, self-reflection and growth are core themes, and so are bragging rights, shit-talk, and life’s pleasures. It’s the most multi-faceted ScHoolboy Q album to date and he masterfully pulls every aspect of it off. If you thought you had him pegged, or if you thought he fell off with 2019’s lukewarmly-received Crash Talk, Blue Lips suggests otherwise.

2. Kendrick Lamar – GNX (pgLang/Interscope)

At least as far as rap music is concerned, there was no bigger story in 2024 than this one: Drake poked the bear, and then we all saw what happens when you poke the bear. A week-long trading of diss tracks between the two superstars broke out, none more of a dagger than Kendrick’s “Not Like Us,” a scathing takedown of Drake that beat him at his own game (club tracks) and went on to become one of the most (literally) world-conquering songs of the year. And as the world danced on Drake’s proverbial grave, Kendrick gave us more where that came from. Mr. Morale stepped aside so Kendrick Lamar Duckworth could come out guns blazing on GNX, an album that drops all of the grandiosity that Kendrick’s critics have accused him of in the past. No one is safe from the venom he spits on opening track “Wacced Out Murals.” Multiple songs gave us more where “Not Like Us” came from. In an era in which the internet threatens to erase the regionality that’s long been so intrinsic to rap music, GNX is an explicitly West Coast rap album, from the beat selection to the underground LA rappers that take up just about all of the guest spots. The only big-name guest at all is Kendrick’s longtime collaborator (and upcoming 2025 tourmate) SZA, who duets with him on two songs (“Luther” and “Gloria”) that prove Angry Kendrick still has a sentimental side. Even on an album that intentionally narrows Kendrick’s focus, his wide range comes off as second nature.

1. Tyler, the Creator – Chromakopia (Columbia)

After going in an experimental, melodic, not-really-rap direction on 2019’s IGOR and swinging the pendulum back towards hard-nosed rap on 2022’s Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler, the Creator brought all of that and more together for his grandest statement yet, Chromakopia. As cliché as it is to say, Chromakopia plays out like a movie, from its truly cinematic intro “St. Chroma” through all the ups and downs that lead to the final fade-out of “I Hope You Find Your Way Home.” Its themes of growth, aging, self-reflection, and the prospect of parenthood give it a deeply personal concept that runs throughout the LP, and Tyler still finds time amidst all the maturation to bust out Odd Futuristic bangers (“Rah Tah Tah,” “Thought I Was Dead”) and share the spotlight with some charismatic rising stars (Doechii, GloRilla, Sexyy Red). Chromakopia feels like everything Tyler’s been working towards since the career turning-point of 2017’s Flower Boy. It’s tempting to call it his magnum opus, but given the hot streak he’s been on, it’s very likely that his magnum opus hasn’t been written yet.

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SEE ALSO:

* 50 Best Albums of 2024