The 20 Best Rap Radio Hits of 2022
Here's the Spotify playlist, and I'll continue into other genres later this week.
1. Megan Thee Stallion - "Plan B"
#10 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #29 Hot 100
It's kind of lame and predictable to love the track where a contemporary rapper kicks some '90s flows over a '90s beat. But I enjoy Megan Thee Stallion's more typical trap beat material too, and she needed a song like this in her repertoire and absolutely killed it. Her premiering this at Coachella and then releasing the studio version was a great moment, and using the beat from a semi-forgotten Jodeci remix was a brilliant way to evoke the mid-'90s without trading on the familiarity of the sample.
2. GloRilla f/ Cardi B - "Tomorrow 2"
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #9 Hot 100
There are few episodes of television I've laughed harder at than the 2005 episode of the Cartoon Network series "Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends" that introduced the character named Cheese. The Memphis producer Macaroni Toni has apparently been using a sample of that episode as his producer tag on GloRilla songs for years, but I didn't hear it until the release of "Tomorrow," her first song after breaking through earlier this year with "F.N.F." And now it cracks me up every time to hear that drop on a huge hit featuring Cardi B.
3. JNR Choi f/ Sam Tompkins - "To The Moon"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #38 Hot 100
The sound of New York drill represents the most significant wave of British hip hop influencing mainstream American rap in the history of the genre. But I was still a little surprised when a relatively unimportant London rapper named JNR Choi achieved something that trailblazers like Stormzy or Dizzee Rascal have never come close to: a British rap song in heavy rotation on U.S. rap stations. There are multiple remixes of "To The Moon" featuring American rappers including Gunna and Fivio Foreign, but most of the time I just heard the original, built on a sample of some unknown British singer covering an old Bruno Mars deep cut, such an odd random UK drill song to become an American breakthrough but a really catchy one.
4. Gunna f/ Future and Young Thug - "Pushin P"
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #7 Hot 100
2022 started out as a banner year for Gunna and Young Thug, as DS4EVER outsold The Weeknd, "Pushin P" and that silly P emoji were everywhere, and they appeared on the cover of Billboard in a story that touted YSL Records as one of rap's top labels. And then in May, Thug, Gunna, and 26 of their associates were arrested in a RICO indictment that characterized YSL as a gang, and at this point I have no idea if or when those guys will be free again. So it's already pretty bittersweet to remember "Pushin P" as possibly the end of an era.
5. Peezy - "2 Million Up"
#48 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
"2 Million Up" only appeared on a Billboard chart for the first time last week, but it's been an enjoyable presence on Baltimore and D.C. radio for a couple months now. I know a lot of critics and music lovers who are a lot more well verse in Michigan rap than I am, and sometimes I find it a little insular and samey. But "2 Million Up" feels like a perfect example of kind of an unassuming regional mixtape rap song sounding great in a radio context, Peezy spitting this barrage of nonchalant quotables ("red and green Gucci sweater on just like Freddy Kreuger/ everybody around me family, we don't do recruitin'") over a sort of distant, cavernous sample of the same Dennis Edwards track that's been sampled in classic by Biggie, 2Pac, and Rakim.
6. JID f/ 21 Savage and Baby Tate - "Surround Sound"
#37 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #90 Hot 100
JID's ostensible triumph of 2022 was the gigantic multi-platinum Imagine Dragons collaboration "Enemy," but it was a hollow victory considering that a) it's a horrible song and b) the edit I always heard on Top 30 and alternative stations excised the JID verse. But "Surround Sound," the first taste of mainstream radio play for both JID and Baby Tate, was a much better song that helped me come around to respecting JID as more than just the guy who raps exactly like Kendrick, and a great use of the Aretha Franklin "One Step Ahead" sample widely associated with Mos Def's "Ms. Fat Booty."
7. Kendrick Lamar f/ Blxst and Amanda Reifer - "Die Hard"
#21 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #5 Hot 100
Kendrick himself returned from a 5-year absence this year with an album that was neither a crowd-pleaser like DAMN. nor a leftfield masterpiece like To Pimp A Butterfly. The best song (and video) from the entire rollout for the good but frustrating Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, "The Heart Part 5," was left off the initial album release and totally ignored in favor of one of the album's multiple collaborations with rapist redemption arc poster boy of the year Kodak Black. But the current single from the album is a good one that reminds me that there are plenty of songs on Mr. Morale that I enjoy.
8. Hitkidd & GloRilla - "F.N.F. (Let's Go)"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #42 Hot 100
It's a shame that Hitkidd and GloRilla are still currently in a public fight about the Grammy-nominated song that made them both famous, but hopefully everyone continues to get big checks off of that breakthrough. It's kind of funny how people try to characterize GloRilla so different from other female rappers, but she did bring a different energy into 2022 that I hope will continue to thrive in 2023, I think mainstream rap is almost always improved by the presence of Memphis artists.
9. Future f/ Tems and Drake - "Wait For U"
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #1 Hot 100
Future is one of the most popular, consistent, and influential rappers of the past 10 years. And while his friendship with Drake has inarguably been beneficial to his career, Future's habit of standing next to one of the few guys whose success dwarfs his own has a way of diminishing him, especially when, say, Future gets his first #1 on the Hot 100 as a guest on a song as awful as "Way 2 Sexy." But Future got a little redemption when he reteamed with Drake a few months later for a much better song that became his first #1 as the primary artist.
10. Quavo & Takeoff - "Hotel Lobby (Unc & Phew)"
#35 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #57 Hot 100
Takeoff's death was one of the most upsetting stories of 2022 for many hip hop fans, and even before that, the apparent breakup of Migos was pretty dispiriting as well. But I will say, Takeoff at least spent his final days releasing and promoting a strong record, Only Built For Infinity Links and especially its lead single displayed Quavo and Takeoff's familiar chemistry but it managed to feel like its own new thing, not just a Migos record with a missing member.
11. Pharrell Williams f/ 21 Savage and Tyler, The Creator - "Cash In Cash Out"
#22 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #26 Hot 100
Pharrell originally worked on "Cash In Cash Out" for 21 Savage's next solo album, and then decided to keep it to release as his own single with an additional rapper on the track. It's not really clear why Pharrell wanted release a solo single without any of his own vocals on it at this juncture in his career, after singing hits like "Happy" and "Frontin'" -- is he going to do another The Neptunes Present...Clones-style collaboration album? -- but I like "Cash In." 21's verse might be the best of his career, and Tyler, who's never really fit as comfortably into the rap radio landscape as his idol, works perfectly as a counterpoint to 21 on the track.
12. Vince Staples & Mustard - "Magic"
#41 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Vince Staples emerged a decade ago in the shadow of guys like Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler, and Mac Miller who found success without chasing radio hits. And even when Staples made music that hewed much closer to conventional street rap than those guys, he seemed to operate in his own niche as a respected major label cult artist. But when Staples released my favorite album of 2022, Ramona Park Broke My Heart, he finally seemed to take some baby steps towards more traditional mainstream rap stardom, recording a radio-friendly single with veteran hitmaker Mustard and even popping up alongside the song in a car commercial, without ever really feeling like the song wasn't a natural and comfortable choice for him. I only heard the song on the radio a couple times, but it put a pretty big smile on my face when it did, and it makes me wonder what he could accomplish with a bigger, bolder move in that direction.
13. Lil Baby - "In A Minute"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #14 Hot 100
Lil Baby had kind of a strange year, between several of the artists he's most closely associated with getting locked up, and the long, strangely listless rollout for his follow-up to 2020's quadruple platinum blockbuster My Turn. "In A Minute" was the only one of the many singles released ahead of the album that actually wound up on It's Only Me, and it feels like it connected mainly because of the familiarity of a sample used on a circa 2014 Drake hit. Right now, his label is still pushing "Heyy" hard despite the fact that everybody hates it and it has never even once gotten more streams than a couple of album tracks, hopefully he can course correct before people decide his moment at the top is over.
14. Jack Harlow - "First Class"
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #1 Hot 100
I feel like I have no idea what happened to good old fashioned follow-up singles. "First Class" was the big solo #1 that Jack Harlow had been seemingly building towards since he was an awkward little aspiring teen rapper. And 8 months later, his label hasn't given a single push to any other songs on his album, despite lots of performing and media appearances and a couple videos for album tracks. Like, dude, you're album is gold, you don't want to push it to platinum? In any event, I was amused by a white rapper getting to #1 by sampling Fergie, but I also enjoy both "Glamorous" and "First Class."
15. Latto f/ Lil Wayne and Childish Gambino - "Sunshine"
#29 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Latto had was the 2nd highest rap song on the year end Hot 100 behind "First Class," and "Big Energy" is just the most craven dogshit song, a catchphrase grafted onto a popular sample in the most lifeless way possible. Nothing Latto has done or probably ever will do will ever be that successful even though she has much better songs, but I respect that she did what Harlow hasn't and continued dropping follow-up singles, including the very catchy and underrated "Sunshine." That said, semi-retired rapper Donald Glover collaborating with her just so he could get off that "my sons are mulatto" punchline is the most Donald Glover thing ever.
16. YG f/ J. Cole and Moneybagg Yo - "Scared Money"
#19 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #73 Hot 100
One thing I like about both "Sunshine" and "Scared Money" is you don't get a lot of posse cut singles anymore with verses from three or four MCs, feels like something that's been relegated to album tracks and remixes, I miss it.
17. Gucci Mane f/ Lil Durk - "Rumors"
#16 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #51 Hot 100
Lil Durk's albums do numbers, but he's become ubiquitous in the last couple years almost purely off features and collaborations. Obviously he's an influential Chicago legend, but outside of his hometown I don't know if most rap listeners could even tell you the name of a solo Durk song. This is one feature that pretty much feels like a Durk song that happens to have Gucci Mane on it, though. But then, Gucci's kind of in that elder legend phase where it feels absolutely fine that he gets hits by letter a younger guest dominate the track.
18. Bad Bunny - "Titi Me Pregunto"
#48 Hip Hop/R&B Airplay, #5 Hot 100
There's really no way to accurately describe the mind-boggling scale of Bad Bunny's success in 2022. He ran circles around everybody even with American radio keeping Spanish-language music at arm's length. "Titi Me Pregunto" is one of a couple songs that did scrape the lower reaches of the rap radio charts for a few weeks, though, maybe the 3 English words in the hook ("selfie, say cheese") helped it get past the usual resistance.
19. Drake - "Sticky"
#10 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #6 Hot 100
Drake built his career on turning the risky experimentation of 808s & Heartbreak into a safe and sturdy formula. And this year for the first time, Drake actually made a risky album of his own, toying with dance beats for the entirety of Honestly, Nevermind...and then hedging his bets at the end with a straight up rap song, "Jimmy Cooks," that somewhat inevitably became far bigger than anything else on the album. Personally, though, I liked what Drake did with the house beats, especially the ones like "Sticky" where Gordo aka Carnage, a Maryland native, put a Baltimore club kick drum pattern on the track.
20. Ice Spice - "Munch (Feelin' U)"
#28 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
In the Twitter echo chamber, Ice Spice is a lightning rod who people can't stop tweeting about, often to scold each other for helping make her famous. On the larger music industry stage, neither of her viral hits has breached the Hot 100, and all the snark about her being more attractive than talented has just gotten gratuitously mean-spirited -- I didn't like "Munch" as much as "No Clarity" initially, but once the song started getting radio play, I was surprised at how good it sounded in that context, better than a lot of recent drill hits.
The 10 Worst Rap Radio Hits of 2022:
1. DJ Khaled f/ Drake and Lil Baby - "Staying Alive"
2. Kodak Black - "Super Gremlin"
3. Lil Durk f/ Gunna -"What Happened To Virgil"
4. Polo G - "Bad Man (Smooth Criminal)"
5. Lil Baby - "Heyy"
6. Rod Wave - "By Your Side"
7. Armani White - "Billie Eilish"
8. Tyga f/ Pop Smoke and Jhene Aiko - "Sunshine"
9. Kanye West & XXXTentacion - "True Love"
10. Fivio Foreign f/ Alicia Keys and Kanye West - "City Of Gods"
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on Sunday, December 04, 2022 at 1:58 PM.
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