The top most essential rap albums you can listen to right now

Over the years, there have been multiple hip-hop albums released, of differing quality of course. However, today I will be listing what I think are the best and most essential rap   albums that you can listen to right now.

Kendrick Lamar - GNX

Released a couple months after winning his beef against Drake, GNX was surprise-released on the Saturday morning of November 27, 2024. The album was named after the Buick Regal model (a car brand). When the album was released, without any singles, it received acclaim from both critics and audiences, with many calling it ‘a victory lap’ for Lamar after his feud with Drake. The album released with many incredible songs, including “Wacced Out Murals’, a song that focuses on the mixed reactions to Lamar being the headliner of the Super Bowl, “Luther”, a song featuring popular pop singer SZA that is a love ballad, “Reincarnated”, where he thinks about reincarnation, talks with his ‘father, and expresses his shame on past mistakes. Finally, “TV Off”, a West Coast style hip hop song that has Lamar screaming ‘MUSTARD” with all his energy.

Tyler, The Creator - Chromakopia

Released on October 28, 2024, Chromakopia is Tyler’s 8th album which he wrote, produced and released himself. The album blends multiple genres, including jazz, soul and hip-hop. Quickly becoming popular and receiving critical praise, Chromakopia was praised for its production, lyricism and cohesiveness, and even though messiness is usually a weak part of albums, that was what the album was also praised for. Chromakopia consists of multiple lyrically complex and viral songs, including “Sticky”, a song that inspired TikTok trends and consists of many features such as Lil Wayne, “Darling, I”, a song focusing on Tyler’s attitude to his relationships and their future, “Thought I Was Dead”, a diss track to a very egoistic rapper, Ian, and “Like Him”, where Tyler dwells on his conflicted feelings about his upbringing and growing up without an absent father, where he starts to wonder if he’ll be like him.

JID - The Forever Story

After featuring on the widely popular Imagine Dragons song ‘Enemy’, JID then released his 3rd album, ‘The Forever Story’ on August 26, 2022. The album uses lyricism in order to talk about his own upbringing, and incorporates elements of R and B, alternative hip-hop and trap. When it was released, the album became JID’s most popular project and received widespread acclaim for its ambition and lyricism, and has been named one of the best albums of 2022 and one of the best hip-hop albums of the current decade. The album features many songs using JID’s main themes, including ‘Surround Sound’, another song that was viral on TikTok, features 21 Savage, and was based on the environmental sounds and noises that JID heard as a kid, ‘Dance Now’, a song that raps incredibly quickly but also has JID telling the listener about the expectations placed on him, and ‘Radar’, a hard-hitting song about JID in high school playing American Football.

Travis Scott - Utopia

5 years after his iconic solo project ‘Astroworld’ and 4 years after his collab album ‘JackBoys’, Travis finally released his 4th studio album, Utopia, on July 28, 2023. The album, similar to other Scott albums, has lots of incredible production, while taking some very clear inspiration from Kanye West. Despite the album dividing many critics for its lack of cohesion and its familiarity with other Kanye West works, the album was a quick commercial success, selling 496,000 units in its first week. The album was also incredibly popular with audiences, with many calling it one of Scott’s best projects, along with becoming viral on the Internet for its songs. The album contains so many different types of songs, including ‘MY EYES’, a song showing Travis’s emotional vulnerability while also referencing his ex-girlfriend Kylie Jenner, ‘FE!N’, a viral song that made the rounds on TikTok due to its catchy chant of ‘FE!N’, and ‘I KNOW”, a song with incredibly catchy flows and a background piano instrumental. 

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Although modern times gifting Kanye many inescapable controversies, including infamous tweets on Twitter and a recent one at the Grammys involving his wife, West had an incredible streak throughout the 2000s and 2010s, including classics, such as ‘The College Dropout’, ‘Graduation’, ‘808s and Heartbreak’,  and ‘The Life of Pablo’. However, his most acclaimed album was his 5th studio album, coming on November 22, 2010, entitled ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’. The album has a very ‘maximalist’ aesthetic, along with its ‘opulent’ production style, and blending elements of soul, baroque, pop and electro. The album was an immediate success, receiving massive acclaim from multiple critics (and infamously receiving a 6/10 from popular online Anthony Fantano) for its maximalist approach, and was a quick commercial success. The album features many future classics, including ‘Runaway’, a song about West’s past relationships and his acceptance of the media’s view on him that is widely considered West’s best song, ‘All of the Lights’, a song featuring Rihanna that has a catchy, maximalist, detailed theme, and ‘Devil is a New Dress’, a song that talks about lust, religion and heartache.