10 years ago, I split 2000s hip hop into three end-of-decade lists: southern rap, non-southern rap, and rap/R&B crossovers. And as fun as it might be to try to do that again, I just knew it would be too difficult to make work when looking back on the 2010s. The already porous borders between rap and R&B got much more collapsed, obviously by Drake as well as many others, while the regional differences in the sound of rap got muddier and artists from all over the map worked together more often and north/south production trends bled together more and more.

Here's a playlist of these 100 songs (well, 99 of them, one of the Yo Gotti tracks isn't on streaming services). And here's my other 2010s lists of albums, R&B singles, country singles, and TV shows. 

Soundcloud launched in 2008 and is still going strong in the 2020s with as wide a range of music as any self-publishing platform, but "Soundcloud rap" will always mean something specific about a particular sector of hip hop in the mid/late 2010s. "XO TOUR Llif3" was one of a pack of 4 songs Lil Uzi Vert uploaded to Soundcloud as a stopgap release after opening shows for The Weeknd, even indifferently naming the song like a tour EP, but it unexpectedly became the most enduring song of an era that everybody wanted to insist would be forgotten. Uzi released about 30 songs this year, and one of the most popular ones, "P2," is a calculated sequel to "XO," but there's really no recapturing the weird goth mall punk rap magic of the original. 

I thought it was unrealistically ambitious when DJ Mustard made '10 Summers' the name of both his label and his first album, but he's well on the way to making it a reality: 2012 was the first summer that his beats (mainly "Rack City") blasted out of cars across the country, and right now Roddy Ricch's "High Fashion" is one of the big songs of Mustard's 9th summer of ubiquity. "I'm Different" was the first big hit that codified the jokes about Mustard's simple piano-tinkling melodies, but I thought that sound was never better than when the artist formerly known as Tity Boi was rapping circles around the track. 

It's funny to think that Meek Mill (born Robert Williams) sent this song to Rick Ross (born William Roberts) before he was signed to MMG, calling himself the boss after years of Ross making his name synonymous with the word "boss." But Rozay liked it and jumped on the song, and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, with Meek eventually becoming a star and a boss on the same level as the guy who signed him. 

Before To Pimp A Butterfly was released, all the buzz was over an unheard song called "King Kunta" that Pharrell Williams heard in the studio and raved about to the press. And I guess that's proof of how humble and willing to praise others Pharrell is, because he didn't say anything about the monster record he actually worked on for the album. 

You'll notice that every other song on this list has chart positions, but "March Madness" made a significant impact without ever getting further than #8 on Billboard's Bubbling Under chart. I think the main reason for that is Future just dropped so much music in 2015 and was so ubiquitous that something great was bound to get crowded out. But "March Madness" grew slowly and persistently from March 2015, when it was released on 56 Nights, to March 2016, when Future performed the song on "Saturday Night Live," and in some ways has outlasted the Drake collaborations "Where Ya At" and "Jumpman" that pulled in most of Future's airplay in that period. 

Pink Friday was already a cultural juggernaut before pop stars started noticing the insanely catchy bonus track buried on the deluxe edition and posting about it, and in retrospect it's weird to think it wasn't on the proper album. And even now it still stands out as the one time when Nicki Minaj got the crossover single recipe perfect -- going off the numbers, "Starships" was as big if not bigger, but everybody knows that "Super Bass" was the one. 

I'll be the first to admit that I totally dismissed Young Thug a year before "Stoner," but as soon as I heard that song, everything clicked, and I wasn't surprised at all by everything that happened for him after that. 

Drake commercially dominated 2010s hip hop like no other rapper ever has in any decade, the sheer numbers explaining the scale of his success are staggering. So it's a little awkward to try to do an overview of the decade as a Drake agnostic who's spent the last 11 years alternating between mocking him, tolerating him, ignoring him, and acknowledging the occasional song I actually enjoy. "0 To 100" was one of the many loosies that kept him ubiquitous between albums, by no means the biggest and not even included on last year's Care Package compilation. But the beat has a really refreshing grit to it, and Drake, who initially started writing a song intended for Diddy, sounds really wound up and motivated, talking shit in a Puff Daddy mode. And when Drake decided to keep the song and release it himself, Diddy reportedly slapped him over it, because even in moments of triumph Drake is embarrassing. 

A lot of people were skeptical when Mike Will Made It, then the biggest producer in hip hop, decided to launch his own label Ear Drummers with a pair of Mississippi brothers whose goofy group name was the label's name backwards. Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi were 21 and 22, respectively, but their squeaky voices and youthful energy earned them incessant comparisons to the '90s tween rap duo Kris Kross. And then they just kept notching hit after hit, with Swae Lee writing more smashes for Beyonce and others, and the Kris Kross comparisons finally started to go away. 

Shy Glizzy is the only artist on this list I've actually met and interviewed, and I felt a lot of local pride about seeing three artists from the D.C./Maryland area blow up together on the same song. But it's not just me, people love "Crew" everywhere, and it really felt like each artist added something special to the record and made it the rare rap/R&B collaboration where the ingredients got balanced perfectly. 

If J. Cole had kept making singles with R&B singers and never became the isolated "platinum with no features" Cole, I really think he never would've become as big as he is today, and probably would've kind of gone the way of Wale. But I don't particularly like Cole's hooks, so I kind of prefer when he'd get singers on his tracks, especially one as good as Miguel. 

Roddy Ricch had a couple songs buzzing on the charts before "Ballin'," and he's far surpassed its success in the first half of 2020, but "Ballin'" still feels like that magical tipping point that completely reveals the extent of a rapper's talent and starts opening every door for them. 

As big as Pluto and its 5 singles were, it kind of feels like Future has so far eclipsed it commercially that that early era feels a little underrated now. And as he's moved towards a more consistently nonchalant delivery, "Same Damn Time" feels even more like a bombastic outlier in his catalog now than it was at the time. But that grain in his voice when he works his way up a shout, it always sounds amazing. 

Every day, another vapid YouTuber or social media celebrity releases their first rap song, often with the backing of a major label, and it's usually terrible. But the personality and gift of gab that made Cardi B internet famous before she pivoted to music translated so naturally to her songs that her ascent was incredibly swift. A few months before "Bodak Yellow" was released, I wrote "the more money they put into her production, the higher her ceiling gets," but even I wouldn't have dreamed that her next single would go all the way to #1. And there's a nice poetic justice to a shitty rapist like Kodak Black's signature flow being taken to bigger stages by a woman.  

A lot of MCs have rapped arguably the best verse of their whole career on a Kanye record, but for me the gold standard is 2 Chainz on "Mercy." Just a couple months ago, Tity Boi noted on Instagram that he had the best verse on the song, and Big Sean had the unmitigated gall to take offense to the statement. But what I really like is how Kanye gives his own verse the big dramatic beat switch, and then somehow it feels more climactic when the track returns to the original beat for the 2 Chainz verse. 

The most popular version of "I Don't Like" on both the radio and streaming services is, unfortunately, the ugly mcmansion of a G.O.O.D. Music remix that features Big Sean rapping over a wheezing accordion loop. But the original "I Don't Like" is the one that launched Chief Keef and drill as a phenomenon and made an irrevocable impact on hip hop, and it's just a better song without all the bells and whistles added to Young Chop's beat. 

Beyonce's "Flawless" remix featuring Nicki Minaj was another all-star overhaul of a great song that I found kind of disappointing and unnecessary, but thankfully, Nicki did her verse in exchange for a B feature on The Pinkprint that lived up to the potential of the two of them together on a track. It was a pretty funny day on Twitter when Just Blaze raved about the amazing "Feeling Myself" beat and Barbz instinctively attacked him thinking he was insulting it. 

"Ex-Factor" is my favorite Lauryn Hill song and I braced myself when I heard that Drake had sampled it, but that loop of L-Boogie's harmonies really came out nice, and that providing the melody makes this one of the few big Drake crossover hits where he raps instead of singing for the whole song. And it's good to hear one of Cash Money's Young Money-era superstars top the charts with a bounce beat that tips a hat to the label's New Orleans roots.

 

"Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe" was always envisioned as a track that would have a big name feature -- Andre 3000 nearly recorded a verse for it, and Lady Gaga originally sang the hook before Kendrick went with the more understated hook with Anna Wise singing backup on the album version. But it didn't really become a superstar collaboration until Jay-Z hopped on the victory lap remix a few months after good kid, m.A.A.d city's release. And what I really like about this track is how motivated Kendrick is to show up his idol, adding a second verse after Jay's where he pulls out every trick and every flow he can, switching cadences over and over and playing a drum solo with consonants over the relaxed beat. 

Young Thug was one of the many Atlanta rappers that Gucci Mane was mentoring before he went to prison in 2013, at which point Thugger was ready to step out on his own, and did so decisively with the release of "Stoner" and "Danny Glover." Over the next few months, other southern rap power brokers started to circle him, and in the first week of June, Thug dropped classics with two of them: "About The Money" with Gucci's rival T.I. on June 3rd, and then "Lifestyle" with Birdman's revamped Rich Gang on June 5th. No rapper has ever leveled up that much in a single week without an album in stores. 

It's probably inevitable that Dej Loaf's subsequent career has veered toward clubbier and more melodic material, but it really made an impact when one of the hardest songs of 2014 came from a girl from Detroit who stood 5 foot 3 and sounded like it.

Atlanta's "swag" era of the late 2000s and early 2010s produced a lot of one hit wonders and a few long-running talents. But one act that had a pretty impressive run that I wish had lasted longer was Travis Porter, a group of three guys whose name made them sound like one preppy kid who I imagined looked like Asher Roth or something. 

Future arguably made better melodic songs on HNDRXX, but "Turn On The Lights On" was a significant turning point for a guy who at that point was best known for "Tony Montana" and "Same Damn Time." Like when LL made "I Need Love" or like when Ja made "Put It On Me," it opened up a lane for Future's career that would serve him well for years, while helping Mike WiLL Made It's distinctive sparkly synth tones as one of the defining sounds of the era. 

Thank Me Later has justifiably gone down as one of Drake's bigger stumbles, although like his other lesser records it still did great commercially, and ten years later you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wants to thank him for it. But that album did have a couple of my favorite Drake singles, "Fancy" and this one. "Miss Me" started out as an outtake from Bun B's Trill OG album, which explains the Bun ad lib on Drake's verse and why it's one of the hardest Boi-1da/40 productions ever. Plus it gave us the Soulja Boy "Draaaaake?" memes, and my brother-in-law and I have been quoting the "pants are mighty fitted" section to each other for a decade. 

The consensus about the most popular Migo has swung over the course of their career from helium-voiced hook master Quavo to "Bad & Boujee" anchor and guest verse specialist Offset, with Takeoff often getting 3rd wheel status (to the point of him not even appearing on "Boujee," their only #1). But I've always been partial to Takeoff's raspy voice and sharp-elbowed flow, and for a minute there, their biggest hit was the Takeoff-heavy "Fight Night." 

Bobby Shmurda has a parole hearing tomorrow and there's actually a possibility, or so I've read, that he could be a free man as soon as this week. Until that happens, however, he stands as one of the more bittersweet rap success stories of the past decade -- a 20-year-old kid went viral with a mixtape freestyle with no chorus, and became one of the industry's hottest prospects in a matter of weeks, only to get locked up for several years soon after. But man, that was a moment. 

I have to rank Young M.A. below Bobby Shmurda because she used the flow from his big hit on her big hit, but in many ways she made a similar impact, just flowing and flowing in one long verse and seemingly making a smash by accident through sheer force of charisma. And like "Hot N***a," only accept the original solo version of "OOOUUU," not the absolutely unnecessary remix with French Montana that every NYC rapper gets assigned whenever they have a hit. 

I've never bought into the legend of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, an album Kanye himself has copped to being kind of a safe highlight reel of sounds from his first 4 albums at a time when he was trying to win back the public. And even "Monster" has lost some luster over the years -- that silly listicle at the top of Jay-Z's verse, the way Kanye goes past 16 bars but then kind of loses interest and drifts off into random syllables like "nun gunna do AH! the new now!" I've even become kind of fixated on how the most quoted part of the justifiably famous Nicki verse doesn't really rhyme at all. Still, it's a hot song.  

"King's Dead" from the Black Panther soundtrack feels a bit like a TDE version of an overstuffed Kanye posse cut, right down to James Blake playing the role of the Bon Iver token white guy for hipster cred points. Still, the beat knocks, and I enjoy the contrast between Jay Rock's effortful moment in the spotlight and Future's blithely silly star cameo, and Kendrick Lamar's showboating outro as a human guitar solo. 

Megan has been such a bright light on the last couple years, just this huge undeniable talent on her steady ascent, racking up seemingly inevitable collaborations with this superstar and that one along the way. And I love how unassuming and casually filthy her breakthrough hit was, it doesn't really sound like the kind of song that lauches a rap star but it just put across her Pimp C-style persona so perfectly. The whole thing lately with her getting shot in the foot by some asshole has been so upsetting, I really hope she continues being great and overcomes that bullshit. 

The biggest careers last longer than they used to in hip hop, but success can still be fleeting at the lower levels. And it felt like no rapper in the past decade ascended to near the top of the industry for the duration of one year and then turned into a pumpkin at midnight on December 31st quite like Fetty Wap. "Trap Queen" was an unlikely song to launch that kind of run -- the first time I saw it on Twitter, I thought people were just laughing at his warbling like IceJJfish, but I was surprised by how sturdy this odd little song ended up being.  

Waka Flocka's glow of stardom extended a little further beyond his year of impact than Fetty Wap's did, but he similarly could never really match any of the 4 hits from his debut album. I dismissed "O Let's Do It" the first couple times I heard it tacked onto Gucci Mane mixtapes like a pop-up ad, but in retrospect I love those beepy synth horns, kind of the same way I love Meek Mill's "I'm A Boss." Badly synthesized brass riffs are the 5th element of hip hop. 

A few months into the new decade, Lil Baby's My Turn was the highest selling album of the first half of 2020, and he's decisively ascended to the new A-list, while Gunna has also had a #1 album and a ubiquitous run of features. And I have to admit, if you told me 5 years ago that Young Thug proteges were running hip hop, I would've assumed it'd be a little more interesting than these guys, who've adopted Thugger's most buttoned-down flows and presented them with calmer voices and more conventional rap star personas. But the chemistry they presented on Drip Harder and its lead single was really a boon to both of them -- in a decade when duo albums by two established solo rappers became trendy, it was really one of the only times it became an essential cornerstone of both artists' careers. 

Wale's had a really good career -- a dozen radio hits, a couple #1 albums -- for someone who's been incessantly compared to the bigger success of guys he came up alongside like J. Cole and Drake. But "Bad" felt like the moment when he was really at his peak and dominated the rap/R&B fusion lane, and had his biggest and best hit with an artist on his own label, and did a remix with Rihanna (which, hey, good for Wale, but the Tiara Thomas version is the only one that matters). 

Never before or since have 3 rappers on the same label dominated mainstream hip hop as consistently as Lil Wayne and his two biggest Young Money proteges did for most of the 2010s. There are a lot of songs featuring 2 of those artists, but only a handful featuring all 3 of them, and they're a pretty mixed bag: three mediocre songs on the We Are Young Money compilation (including the huge and hugely obnoxious hit "BedRock"), the botched Remy Ma response track "No Frauds," and two songs on The Pinkprint. One of them, "Only," was the worst of them all, a curdled and monotonous piece of tabloid rap about how Nicki wants us to know all of her lyrics about fucking Wayne and Drake were just lyrics. But the other, "Truffle Butter," is a breezy little delight, three superstars just talking shit over a bleepy minimal beat sampling the Maya Jane Coles house track "What They Say," with a hook that's just a pitched-down whisp of Coles singing the words "you know." 

Hip hop has dominated the streaming era, and streaming in turn has helped shape hip hop. It's become more and more commonplace for major stars to drop surprise albums, or release an album without a big hit single and let the people decide via early streaming numbers what to anoint as the single. "Draco" was declared the lead single from Future's self-titled album, and initially charted the highest. But by the 2nd week, "Mask Off" had pulled ahead in streams, thanks largely to Twitter memes about the song's flute riff, and Future's label had to scramble to make a radio edit of a song where half of the chorus is names of drugs. 

Of all the east coast rap vets of the '90s and 2000s who dropped off radio playlists in the 2010s, I think Styles P managed one of the best transitions to being a cult artist who makes indie albums for a smaller diehard audience, his solo catalog is really solid. So I love that he just kind of unexpectedly popped up on the signature song by Rick Ross and Lex Luger, respectively one of the biggest southern rappers and one of the biggest southern rap producers of the 2010s. 

Memphis rap really thrived in the 2010s, with Young Dolph as one of the leading lights, but he never became a hitmaker on the level of his rival Yo Gotti. But he became really reliable for features, and his verses on "Cut It" and Colonel Loud's "California" got more spins than any of his solo singles. O.T. Genasis, by contrast, is someone who doesn't seem to have much of a fanbase but manages to keep popping up with another hit every time people think his moment is over. 

Wiz Khalifa really executed his rise better than almost anybody, building a huge grassroots following with mixtapes and independent albums, and then cashing in that goodwill at the right moment for a #1 single and a multiplatinum album. I was skeptical about him doing a single with Europop producers-turned-R&B hitmakers Stargate, but it's a great beat, and Wiz got to give his hometown team an anthem right when they were about to play the Super Bowl. Shame about the rest of his career as a boring industry rapper sleepwalking from one hit to the next. 

Kevin Gates built a great catalog over the course of the decade, but 2016's Islah stands as the one time he really crossed over and became a platinum star. His big hit "2 Phones" was catchy, but I really preferred the more aggressive follow-up "Really Really," which reminded me of those big majestic slow motion southern rap bangers like T.I.'s "What You Know." 

Every generation of hip hop has mourned artists that died too young, but it's kind of staggering to think about how many young rappers in the last 10 years died at the peak of their careers, or while they were still building to bigger and better things: Nipsey Hussle, Mac Miller, Juice WRLD, Pop Smoke, XXXtentacion, Lil Peep, and so many others, including regional stars like Baltimore's Lor Scoota. Young Greatness's biggest hit came and went a couple years before he was shot and killed in 2018, but I really dug his music, I thought he had potential to do more. 

There was an odd period for a couple of years after Future became an established hitmaker, but before his 2015 mixtape run, where people seemed to think he was only good for hooks, and wouldn't have him do verses on songs, just choruses, it really felt like people took his talent for granted. "Bugatti" should have a Future verse, or really it could've been his solo track, but it's still pretty great as is, one of Mike WiLL Made It's craziest beats ever. 

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »