The 20 Best Rap Radio Hits of 2023
This year was the 50th anniversary of DJ Kool Herc's first block parties in the Bronx, and as the world celebrated a half century of hip-hop, there was more handwringing than usual about the health of the genre. I mean, people are always complaining about the quality of mainstream rap, but lately people have also been fretting about the actual commercial health of the genre: no rappers had a #1 single or album in America for the entire first half of 2023. Personally, I don't feel like complaining too much when more women are thriving in hip-hop than at pretty much any point in the history of the genre, but certainly the A-list is getting old and I'd love to see a little more new blood at the top, so far the 2020s feel a lot like the 2010s and I'd love for it to feel more like a whole new decade by now. Here's the Spotify playlist:
1. Lola Brooke f/ Billy B - "Don't Play With It"
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #69 Hot 100
Lola Brooke released her debut album Dennis Daughter last month, and it did so poorly that it completely missed the charts (like, not just the Billboard 200, the genre charts too), it didn't even get clowned like the City Girls album because people straight up didn't know it came out. And that's a shame, because it's a pretty solid album, and "Don't Play With It" already beat the odds by coming out in 2021 and slowly bubbling up to the mainstream in early 2023, maybe the album could have done better if it came out at the song's peak. Billy B's verse is great, too, hopefully she gets some shine beyond this song.
2. Gunna - "Fukumean"
#2 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #4 Hot 100
Gunna started off 2022 by outselling The Weeknd and scoring the biggest song of his career with "Pushin P" featuring Young Thug and Future. And then the RICO indictment against Thug, Gunna, and 20-something associates seem to stop all that momentum in its tracks. So it was remarkable that Gunna came out of that under a cloud of doubt, with many fans and former collaborators calling him a snitch or distancing themselves from him, and actually scored a solo hit even bigger than "Pushin P," really the first time in his career that he stood on his own without more famous collaborators.
3. Latto f/ Cardi B - "Put It On Da Floor Again"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #13 Hot 100
After the crossover garbage "Big Energy" took Latto's career to another level last year, I was pleased to see that the similar "Lottery" stalled while a harder song that plays to Latto's strengths thrived this year. A lot of people bemoaned the lack of a consensus 'song of the summer' for 2023, but "Put It On Da Floor Again" felt like a no-brainer answer to that question to me. Cardi B did one of those great mixtape Weezy type verses where she took every bar from Latto's verse and flipped it in a clever way, often improving upon it.
4. J.K. Mac - "No Love"
#31 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
There's something special about southern rap "soul beats" from the lineage of Three 6 and UGK, and that's what I hear in how Alabama rapper J.K. Mac's breakthrough single flips a Patti LaBelle sample.
He also had a really nice, genuine response on Twitter the first time I praised this song, I hope he has a long career ahead of him.
5. NLE Choppa f/ 2Rare - "Do It Again"
#13 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #85 Hot 100
Sometimes it's exasperating rooting for an artist and then watching them turn other people off. NLE Choppa really surprised me with a solid album when Cottonwood 2 dropped, and it had two excellent singles in radio rotation. But it seems like most people missed those songs and only noticed when NLE Choppa released a new song for the album's deluxe edition, "It's Getting Hot," a big goofy remake of Nelly's "Hot In Herre," I really loved how "Do It Again" used a haunting sample of Rose Royce's "Love Don't Live Here" over a really fast, danceable beat.
6. Young Thug f/ Drake - "Oh You Went"
#12 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #19 Hot 100
There are two Drake features on Business Is Business, and the album opener "Parade On Cleveland" is fucking awful, so I was relieved that the good one got radio play instead. In fact, "Oh You Went" is the rarest kind of Drake feature, a song where he doesn't do the hook but contributes a verse that makes the song better.
7. Ice Spice - "Deli"
#24 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #41 Hot 100
"Deli" is, at best, the 6th biggest hit Ice Spice has had in her huge breakout year of 2023 (behind "In Ha Mood," the two songs with Nicki Minaj, and the songs with PinkPantheress and Taylor Swift). But man, I really think this is by far her best song, her whole thing is that breathy nonchalant delivery but it's great to hear her go a little harder. A while back Cardi B explained that she attempted to record a verse for a "Munch" remix and just struggled to keep up with the beat, which I thought was pretty interesting, Ice Spice doesn't get enough credit for making a pretty fast flow sound easy on most of her songs.
8. Coi Leray - "Players"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #9 Hot 100
It's a little funny that "The Message" is both one of the most venerated hip-hop songs of all time, widely credited as blazing a trail for socially conscious rappers, and also an insanely funky club banger that's been sampled over and over in less high-minded hits. There's usually a lot of diminishing returns once a track's been a hit in multiple decades, and Benzino's questionably talented daughter didn't seem like a great candidate to breathe new life into it, but she really hits some great catchy flows on this song.
9. Tyler, The Creator - "Dogtooth"
#21 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #33 Hot 100
When Odd Future stormed the gates over a decade ago, they loved thumbing their noses at radio rappers like B.o.B., and Tyler, The Creator gradually became a conventional mainstream star in just about every sense except in having radio hits. Eventually, though, Tyler did seem to regret or feel self-conscious about not having big singles like Pharrell and his other heroes, and while he hasn't completely changed up his approach, it feels like he's slowly making inroads to becoming a hitmaker. "WUSYANAME" from 2021's Call Me If You Get Lost did better on the airplay charts than any previous Tyler song, and "Dogtooth" from this year's deluxe version of the album got a little further.
10. Scar Lip - "No Statements"
#41 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Women are thriving in hip-hop everywhere, but it definitely feels like they're carrying New York rap post-Pop Smoke, I don't know if any younger guys are making as much noise as Ice Spice, Lola Brooke, and ScarLip.
11. Quavo f/ Future - "Turn Yo Clic Up"
#16 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #83 Hot 100
Takeoff's death is one of rap's great heartbreaks of the last couple years, and the fact that Quavo and Offset have continued to be at odds has made the whole situation seem even sadder. But both of them will probably do fine as solo artists, and both had great songs with Future on their albums this year.
12. Offset f/ Cardi B - "Jealousy"
#16 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #55 Hot 100
For a while it felt like the only Cardi B features I didn't like were on her husband's songs, but this song is great. Sampling old Three 6 tracks feels like a cheat code for making a banger but I hope people never stop doing it.
13. Sexyy Red - "SkeeYee"
#10 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #62 Hot 100
"Poundtown" was one of those viral hits that was so filthy that I was genuinely a little surprised that it got mainstream radio play, although the clean edit just kind of wasn't any fun to listen to, and the Nicki Minaj remix that stations mostly played was a letdown. But Sexyy Red quickly turned around and got an even bigger hit and a bunch of huge collaborations and became even more of a love-it-or-hate-it sensation than Ice Spice. When someone raps that consistently off beat I just don't really have that much fun listening to it, it feels like I'm driving down a bumpy gravel road, but now and then I get caught up in the fun of "SkeeYee," the line "lookin' bad and got a stupid butt" makes me laugh every time.
14. Young Nudy f/ 21 Savage - "Peaches & Eggplants"
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #33 Hot 100
For the last couple decades, Atlanta rap is mainstream rap for all intents and purposes, but there are always some mid-level guys who work with all the big stars without really blowing up nationally, and for the last few years Young Nudy has been at that Peewee Longway level of stardom. This year, though, he finally got an incredibly silly sex song on the Hot 100 thanks to a feature from one of Atlanta's current biggest names.
15. NLE Choppa f/ Lil Wayne - "Ain't Gonna Answer"
#10 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Another great single from Cottonwood 2 that I wish people who only follow music via social media were aware of instead of his Nelly remake. Lil Wayne is never going to return to his peak form, but he's gone back to being really consistent with guest verses in the last couple years, loved to hear him jump on this homage to "Stuntin' Like My Daddy."
16. Finesse2Tymes - "Back End"
#5 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #86 Hot 100
I feel like Finesse2Tymes is going to be the next Memphis rapper who really blows up, for no other reason than that every time I listen to a mix show on the Baltimore and D.C. rap stations, I hear Finesse2Tymes songs other than "Back End." For now he's only had the one song in daytime rotation, but I don't think that will be true for long.
17. Young Dolph - "Love For The Streets"
#42 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
One of the depressing side effects of so so many rap stars dying young in the last few years is that it didn't even feel like some of the legends got properly mourned. I heard like one or two Young Dolph songs on the radio the week he died, and his excellent posthumous album Paper Route Frank really didn't get enough attention. So I was at least happy that one song from the album got a little bit of airplay this year, really fantastic production on "Love For The Streets."
18. Drake f/ Sexyy Red and SZA - "Rich Baby Daddy"
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #11 Hot 100
"Slime You Out" was the worst #1 song of 2023, in a year that included multiple right wing country songs hitting #1, but I at least initially understood Drake banking on a SZA collaboration as his lead single -- until the album came out with another much better SZA collaboration on it. Two of the three local rap stations I listen to cut "Rich Baby Daddy" off before the outro on the album version where Drake mangles Florence + The Machine's "Dog Days Are Over," but unfortunately one station does let it play.
19. TiaCorine - "Freaky T"
#29 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Honorable C.N.O.T.E. probably doesn't get enough credit as one of the best producers today, this song is just alright but the beat is fantastic.
20. EST Gee f/ Jack Harlow - "Backstage Passes"
#27 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #98 Hot 100
It's kind of funny how Jack Harlow and EST Gee are the two biggest rappers from Louisville, Kentucky and seem like polar opposites, but they sound good together on this song. Harlow spent the year between #1 solo hits "First Class" and "Lovin' On Me" trying to shore up his hip-hop cred and not just be a total white rapper crossover star cliche, with features like this and his no-guests-no-singles surprise album Jackman. I don't know that it really made any difference, though. He's vanilla, baby!
The 10 Worst Rap Radio Hits of 2023:
1. Lil Durk f/ J. Cole - "All My Life"
2. Rod Wave - "Fight The Feeling"
3. Lil Uzi Vert - "I Just Wanna Rock"
4. DaBaby - "Shake Sumn"
5. Drake - "Search & Rescue"
6. Lil Baby f/ Fridayy - "Forever"
7. Travis Scott - "I Know?"
8. DDG - "I'm Geekin"
9. Tyga f/ Pop Smoke and Jhene Aiko - "Sunshine"
10. Drake and 21 Savage - "Spin Bout U"
Previously: The 20 Best Rap Radio Hits of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, December 05, 2023 at 7:01 AM.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
Post a Comment