The 20 Best Rap Radio Hits of 2019
Here's the Spotify playlist of these songs, and here are the rap hit lists I did for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.
1. Mustard f/ Roddy Ricch - "Ballin'"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #16 Hot 100
It seemed pretty ambitious to me when DJ Mustard called his label and his first album 10 Summers, but he's only a couple years away from backing that name up: his first huge production, Tyga's "Rack City," turned 8 years old this week, and he's been pretty consistently cranking out hits ever since, with his two biggest singles as an artist just this year. Roddy Ricch was building buzz all year with the solo single "Die Young" and his appearance on the last single Nipsey Hussle released in his lifetime, "Racks In The Middle," both pretty excellent songs but at this point feel like a warmup for the flood of catchy melodies and cadences he tosses out on "Ballin'."
2. DaBaby - "Suge"
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #7 Hot 100
Once upon a time, Suge Knight was hip hop's greatest boogieman, the only person suspected in both of rap's most tragic murders, the one guy that even Eminem made a point of not naming on record. But now he's in prison and rap's hottest new star can blow up with a song where he uses Suge's name as a punchline and mockingly dresses like him in the video.
3. Megan Thee Stallion - "Big Ole Freak"
#5 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #65 Hot 100
It's funny to listen "Big Ole Freak" as it was first released on the Tina Snow EP two summers ago and realize that Megan Thee Stallion re-recorded the entire verses with word substitutions for the radio edit, something you used to hear more around the turn of the century that's become a lost art now, and her delivery sharper and more emphatic on the radio version to the point that the song actually doesn't sound as good with the curses now.
It's funny to listen "Big Ole Freak" as it was first released on the Tina Snow EP two summers ago and realize that Megan Thee Stallion re-recorded the entire verses with word substitutions for the radio edit, something you used to hear more around the turn of the century that's become a lost art now, and her delivery sharper and more emphatic on the radio version to the point that the song actually doesn't sound as good with the curses now.
4. City Girls f/ Cardi B - "Twerk (Remix)"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #29 Hot 100
Speaking of clean versions, it was nice of the censors to edit Yung Miami saying "suck up on that click" as if she actually said "clit." Every few years, New Orleans-style "Triggerman" beats come back in style, and I'm amused that Rico Love just dusted off one of the tracks he did last time it was in fashion, T.I.'s 2012 single "Ball," and changed it up very slightly for "Twerk." I know a lot of people consider "Act Up" to be the definitive City Girls hit, but that chaotically offbeat 2nd verse really ruined it for me, and this has one of Cardi's best guest verses.
5. 21 Savage f/ J. Cole - "A Lot"
#2 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #12 Hot 100
I don't know if I would've expected anybody from the circa 2016 class of Soundcloud rappers to grow into kind of a progressive and introspective activist figure, but it was particularly surprising that it was 21 Savage. I rolled my eyes a little at just how seriously I Am > I Was took itself, how much the soul sample and J. Cole feature on the opening track broadcast what he was going for, but I couldn't deny how well the song held up over months of radio play.
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #29 Hot 100
Speaking of clean versions, it was nice of the censors to edit Yung Miami saying "suck up on that click" as if she actually said "clit." Every few years, New Orleans-style "Triggerman" beats come back in style, and I'm amused that Rico Love just dusted off one of the tracks he did last time it was in fashion, T.I.'s 2012 single "Ball," and changed it up very slightly for "Twerk." I know a lot of people consider "Act Up" to be the definitive City Girls hit, but that chaotically offbeat 2nd verse really ruined it for me, and this has one of Cardi's best guest verses.
5. 21 Savage f/ J. Cole - "A Lot"
#2 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #12 Hot 100
I don't know if I would've expected anybody from the circa 2016 class of Soundcloud rappers to grow into kind of a progressive and introspective activist figure, but it was particularly surprising that it was 21 Savage. I rolled my eyes a little at just how seriously I Am > I Was took itself, how much the soul sample and J. Cole feature on the opening track broadcast what he was going for, but I couldn't deny how well the song held up over months of radio play.
6. Lil Nas X - "Old Town Road"
#2 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #1 Hot 100
One of the strangest chart success stories of this or any year: an obscure Atlanta teenager previously best known for running a Nicki Minaj fan account on Twitter got a beat from a Dutch producer who sampled a decade-old Nine Inch Nails instrumental album, heard the banjo on the track and decided to write a 113-second cowboy-themed rap jingle, and ended up with the longest-running #1 hit of all time. I find that whole sequence of events incredibly charming -- I was maybe less charmed by the middle chapter of the story, where Billboard listed the song on country charts for a week, reversed the decision, and sparked a weird social media furor where people acted like it was a human rights violation that a song that was about as country at Pitbull's "Timber" or Will Smith's "Wild Wild West" wasn't on the country charts. But in the end, "Old Town Road" was a funny pop rap song that got played on pop radio and rap radio, and it didn't really matter that country radio was understandably more interested in playing Kane Brown, Jimmie Allen, and Darius Rucker.
7. Polo G f/ Lil Tjay - "Pop Out"
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #11 Hot 100
"Pop Out" is an unusually downbeat breakthrough single with a chorus that rhymes "we come from poverity" with "it's a lot of animosity." It's interesting to me how wordy choruses have become really standard in street rap over the last few years, people will act like the entire hook of a song is "rain drop/drop top" but then the actual chorus has almost as many words as 8 bars of a verse.
8. Calboy - "Envy Me"
#8 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #31 Hot 100
Like Polo G, Calboy is from Chicago and his first big Hot 100 hit is kind of somber and feels like it's closely related to, but still kind of a generation removed from, the drill scene from the beginning of the decade. And it's interesting to hear these guys get embraced by national radio more than Keef or Durk ever did.
9. Megan Thee Stallion f/ DaBaby - "Cash Shit"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #36 Hot 100
My two favorite breakthrough artists of 2019 on a quick and profane little banger that sums up the appeal of both rappers pretty succinctly. It's a shame that Meg rushed out her most generic song to try and capitalize on her "hot girl summer" catchphrase while everyone else was capitalizing on it, it really stole momentum away from a far better song. Further adventures in clean edits: "I'm on yo ass bitch" is somehow more fun when it becomes a sequence of ad lib noises ("I'm on yo AHH AYY YUH").
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #11 Hot 100
"Pop Out" is an unusually downbeat breakthrough single with a chorus that rhymes "we come from poverity" with "it's a lot of animosity." It's interesting to me how wordy choruses have become really standard in street rap over the last few years, people will act like the entire hook of a song is "rain drop/drop top" but then the actual chorus has almost as many words as 8 bars of a verse.
8. Calboy - "Envy Me"
#8 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #31 Hot 100
Like Polo G, Calboy is from Chicago and his first big Hot 100 hit is kind of somber and feels like it's closely related to, but still kind of a generation removed from, the drill scene from the beginning of the decade. And it's interesting to hear these guys get embraced by national radio more than Keef or Durk ever did.
9. Megan Thee Stallion f/ DaBaby - "Cash Shit"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #36 Hot 100
My two favorite breakthrough artists of 2019 on a quick and profane little banger that sums up the appeal of both rappers pretty succinctly. It's a shame that Meg rushed out her most generic song to try and capitalize on her "hot girl summer" catchphrase while everyone else was capitalizing on it, it really stole momentum away from a far better song. Further adventures in clean edits: "I'm on yo ass bitch" is somehow more fun when it becomes a sequence of ad lib noises ("I'm on yo AHH AYY YUH").
10. Cardi B - "Money"
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #13 Hot 100
Even though Invasion Of Privacy was a monster album that had 5 hit singles and could've been milked for more, Cardi B decided to start releasing new singles just 4 months after the album dropped, with three solo singles (and a bunch of features) continuing her radio reign throughout 2019 without album #2 on the release calendar yet. A couple of those songs just kinda felt like her spinning her wheels for the sake of remaining ubiquitous, but I really never got tired of "Money," it's up there with her best tracks.
11. Yo Gotti f/ Lil Baby - "Put A Date On It"
#16 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #46 Hot 100
Even though Invasion Of Privacy was a monster album that had 5 hit singles and could've been milked for more, Cardi B decided to start releasing new singles just 4 months after the album dropped, with three solo singles (and a bunch of features) continuing her radio reign throughout 2019 without album #2 on the release calendar yet. A couple of those songs just kinda felt like her spinning her wheels for the sake of remaining ubiquitous, but I really never got tired of "Money," it's up there with her best tracks.
11. Yo Gotti f/ Lil Baby - "Put A Date On It"
#16 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #46 Hot 100
"Put A Date On It" is one of those songs that feels like more a vehicle for the guest rapper than the primary artist, even though Yo Gotti does the hook, but Gotti has always excelled at these kinds of high quality minor hits that have consistently kept him in the conversation for an impressively long run, and this is really nearly the best Lil Baby has ever sounded. In clean edit news: I guess they don't censor "goddamn" anymore based on the times I heard this on the radio.
12. Blac Youngsta - "Cut Up"
#24 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay
Memphis has quietly been a real hotbed of mainstream rap in the last couple years, and of the 7(!) guys who have had a national radio presence lately, Blac Youngsta is the goofiest and least talented. But "Cut Up" has a killer beat and he flows on it better than usual. I'm also entertained by how a loop of Blac Youngsta ad libs kind of becomes part of the beat, and includes him saying "whore" every 12 seconds for most of the song (the radio edit changes it to "thot," which raises the question of why "thot" is allowed when every word it's a synonym for isn't).
13. J. Cole - "Middle Child"
#4 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #4 Hot 100
There's something that rankles me about just how calculated and regimented J. Cole's brand of anti-stardom is. For three albums in a row, he dropped albums with no features or advance singles and still scored radio hits, and when that flex got old, he made a show of doing as many features as possible (and ceremonially declaring an end to his features near the end of the year). Likewise, he pulled out all the stops for his usually low profile Dreamville label's third compilation album, releasing his first solo single that really sounds like a single in a long time and getting the biggest hit of his career. "Middle Child" is, for all its fanfare, kind of a sullen Drake-y rant about Cole's career, it's not as good as it could be but it was still good enough that I let it play in the car pretty often.
14. Young Thug f/ Gunna - "Hot"
#8 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #11 Hot 100
One of the more gratifying developments in 2019 hip hop was that Young Thug finally stopped his 5 years of frustrating fans and did a normal album rollout and got his first #1 album with a couple of big singles, coming off the bench after a couple of years of Thug soundalike hits by everyone from Drake to Coca Vango. The only thing I can really complain about is that the big lead single "The London" felt like Travis Scott and J. Cole featuring Young Thug, and then they actually added Travis to a new version of the second single even though the original was totally fine as is. It really confused me for a few weeks that two of the most popular songs out were "Hot" featuring Gunna and "Heat" featuring Gunna.
One of the more gratifying developments in 2019 hip hop was that Young Thug finally stopped his 5 years of frustrating fans and did a normal album rollout and got his first #1 album with a couple of big singles, coming off the bench after a couple of years of Thug soundalike hits by everyone from Drake to Coca Vango. The only thing I can really complain about is that the big lead single "The London" felt like Travis Scott and J. Cole featuring Young Thug, and then they actually added Travis to a new version of the second single even though the original was totally fine as is. It really confused me for a few weeks that two of the most popular songs out were "Hot" featuring Gunna and "Heat" featuring Gunna.
15. Wale f/ Jeremih - "On Chill"
#2 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #22 Hot 100
Living near and working in Washington, D.C., where Wale has been the city's biggest rap star for well over a decade, the guy has kinda grown on me and I was happy to see him score his biggest hit in 6 years alongside industry hook singer MVP Jeremih (on his 3rd hit just with Wale). Wale says on the first track of Wow...That's Crazy that it's his last album, but I'm skeptical, especially given how well this song did.
16. Meek Mill f/ Ella Mai - "24/7"
16. Meek Mill f/ Ella Mai - "24/7"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #54 Hot 100
As a fan I always had faith that Meek could rise up and become as big as his MMG labelmates, but I never really expected him to become as dependable with midtempo R&B hook records as Wale. The weird thing about Championships is that I really liked the two R&B singles (naturally, the other featured Jeremih) way more than the big rap record "Going Bad," which mostly consisted of Drake going "I just wuh I just wuh" while a cat walked across a piano.
17. 2 Chainz f/ Ariana Grande - "Rule The World"
17. 2 Chainz f/ Ariana Grande - "Rule The World"
#14 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #94 Hot 100
When Ariana Grande released her chart-topping single "7 Rings" at the top of the year, it reminded people of a lot of songs, particularly Soulja Boy's "Pretty Boy Swag" and 2 Chainz's "Spend It." Soulja Boy tweeted angrily about it, while 2 Chainz played it cool, using it as an opportunity to link up with Ariana on the official "7 Rings" remix and getting an Ariana hook for the biggest hit from Rap Or Go To The League.
18. DaBaby f/ Offset - "Baby Sitter"
#5 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #59 Hot 100
I love this song's portamento bassline and the way the tempo is just a little faster than the other songs on Baby On Baby, has such a great kinetic energy to it. When people express discomfort with the fact that one of today's biggest rappers is called DaBaby, Iike to helpfully point out that his most popular songs include "Baby," "Goin Baby," and "Baby Sitter."
19. Pardison Fontaine f/ Cardi B - "Backin' It Up" When Ariana Grande released her chart-topping single "7 Rings" at the top of the year, it reminded people of a lot of songs, particularly Soulja Boy's "Pretty Boy Swag" and 2 Chainz's "Spend It." Soulja Boy tweeted angrily about it, while 2 Chainz played it cool, using it as an opportunity to link up with Ariana on the official "7 Rings" remix and getting an Ariana hook for the biggest hit from Rap Or Go To The League.
18. DaBaby f/ Offset - "Baby Sitter"
#5 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #59 Hot 100
I love this song's portamento bassline and the way the tempo is just a little faster than the other songs on Baby On Baby, has such a great kinetic energy to it. When people express discomfort with the fact that one of today's biggest rappers is called DaBaby, Iike to helpfully point out that his most popular songs include "Baby," "Goin Baby," and "Baby Sitter."
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #40 Hot 100
After co-writing most of Cardi B's hits, Pardison Fontaine stepped into the spotlight with a single of his own featuring her where he manages to hold his own in terms of charisma. But I wish he'd dropped his underrated album UNDER8ED about 10 months sooner to capitalize on song's momentum.
20. YoungBoy Never Broke Again f/ Kevin Gates and Quando Rondo - "I Am Who They Say I Am"
After co-writing most of Cardi B's hits, Pardison Fontaine stepped into the spotlight with a single of his own featuring her where he manages to hold his own in terms of charisma. But I wish he'd dropped his underrated album UNDER8ED about 10 months sooner to capitalize on song's momentum.
20. YoungBoy Never Broke Again f/ Kevin Gates and Quando Rondo - "I Am Who They Say I Am"
#29 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #69 Hot 100
Perhaps no artist better epitomizes the growing generation gap between the young audience that streams rap music and the middle-aged radio programmers who control FM playlists than NBA YoungBoy (still officially credited on all his music by the longer and more ungainly version of his name, YoungBoy Never Broke Again). He spent most of 2019 as the most popular musician or the most popular male artist on all of YouTube, as his low budget videos for dozens of songs each routinely got tens (or hundreds) of millions of views, and scored his first #1 album. Meanwhile, YoungBoy's 22nd most popular song on YouTube became his only minor radio hit of 2019 thanks in no small part to the fact that the old heads working in radio like hearing a sample from a '90s Jay-Z song.
Perhaps no artist better epitomizes the growing generation gap between the young audience that streams rap music and the middle-aged radio programmers who control FM playlists than NBA YoungBoy (still officially credited on all his music by the longer and more ungainly version of his name, YoungBoy Never Broke Again). He spent most of 2019 as the most popular musician or the most popular male artist on all of YouTube, as his low budget videos for dozens of songs each routinely got tens (or hundreds) of millions of views, and scored his first #1 album. Meanwhile, YoungBoy's 22nd most popular song on YouTube became his only minor radio hit of 2019 thanks in no small part to the fact that the old heads working in radio like hearing a sample from a '90s Jay-Z song.
The 10 Worst Rap Radio Hits of 2019:
1. Blueface - "Thotiana"
2. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie - "Look Back At It"
3. Saweetie - "My Type"
4. Drake f/ Rick Ross - "Money In The Grave"
5. Meek Mill f/ Drake - "Going Bad"
6. Offset f/ Cardi B - "Clout"
7. Nicki Minaj - "Megatron"
8. LightSkinKeisha f/ BSmyth - "Ride Good"
9. Travis Scott - "Highest In The Room"
10. Yella Beezy f/ Chris Brown - "Restroom Occupied"
7. Nicki Minaj - "Megatron"
8. LightSkinKeisha f/ BSmyth - "Ride Good"
9. Travis Scott - "Highest In The Room"
10. Yella Beezy f/ Chris Brown - "Restroom Occupied"
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