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These are my top 100 rap and hip-hop songs from 2025. These are tracks that have stuck with me most and that I keep on repeat whether on Spotify, Apple Music, or spinning on vinyl or playing on cassettes or CD’s.
Did I miss some good ones? Without a doubt… Tell me about it though… drop a comment… shoot me a message… this list can change over time… i need to best curate a time capsule of 2025 rap and hip hop because it’s one of the best from memory…
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Big L and Mac Miller on a track is all my ears needed to hear in 2025 so thank you rap gods… Thank you Mass Appeal… Thank you Nas… Thank you the Big L and Mac Miller Estates… Thanks to the producers… Thanks to Pale Jay on the feature… Have you heard “Forever” yet?? If not, go listen… it’s on Big L’s new album that dropped on Halloween. Yup, I did say new Big L album… Crazy that L was taken from us 25+ years ago. Shot 9 times in the face and chest and still an unsolved case… damn…
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I always love rap runs… You know, when emcees are hungry and are putting out tracks and albums non-stop. Think Lil Wayne on that mixtape Weezy run or think of E-40 always popping up and killing it… Pac fresh out of jail… Curren$y’s run is crazy… The Alchemist’s run is crazy… Nas run with Hit-Boy and this Mass Appeal run are crazy… DMX that year he dropped 2 albums… but how about Boldy James and Nicholas Craven? This new album of theirs just dropped and it could be their best?
How often do you go to new rap or hip hop albums that drop and press play and keep going, whoaaaa? Not often right? Well… we got something for you… this new Boldy James and Nicholas Craven is a classic. No other way to describe it… It’s The Black Album to me… This production is so amazing… I could play some of these beats for my dad and he would nod his head. Just go listen fam…
Boldy almost died in that car crash a few years ago and was still out touring when you could see he still wasn’t in the best of conditions… but that voice? That was scratched one bit. Boldy got knocked down in that bad crash but he came back an absolute monster… real talk… you hearing this?
This beat right here??? Nicholas Craven and Boldy have 4 projects with each other… All crazy… This crazier tho…. I really think so. I feel this album should be up for best new rap album of 2025.
i hear this track below and i’m on a massive yacht just not really doing much other than coasting and bumpin dope hip hop. Eating lobsters and chuckin deuces to the homies over on the other side lookin cool and shit.
The album is called Criminally Attached. Don’t be a lame… Trust me on this. This is some no shuffle keep in the rotation and go buy a physical copy type music… Enjoy… Shout out Boldy and Nicholas Craven… yall murked it.
Here’s the Nicholas Craven and Boldy James playlist you needed in your life. Let this ride… And just realize that they dropped 2 crazy albums this year… That’s on some DXM type shit tho…
Navy Blue has long been an artist that when I hear a track of his, I stop for a brief moment and just recognize how dope he is. His music is a wave that I stay on all the way until it crashes into the shore. I usually am able to label somebody who is “hip hop” and somebody who is “rap” but with Navy Blue, I don’t even try to label him. He’s almost like a Jay Electronica to me… Somebody who moved me the first time I heard them and then will always have that special place in my Walkman anytime I see his name.
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Let me just tell you this… When you see a sealed 90s rap cassette of Hollow Tip’s debut album, Takin No Shortz, you gotta cop. You have to… Maybe not right away but you should at least be mulling it over in your head. You better be seeing if there’s something you can flip to get the cash… or do you just go hard and just lock it in quickly. I saw it on ebay… I watched it on eBay. I thought it about it at work… I thought about it in the morning… I thought about it when I woke up. I made that offer for $150 and I locked down one of my favorite 90s gangsta rap albums. Hollow Tip’s Takin No Shortz cassette had found its way to a new home fam.
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Shout out to 2025 for giving us one of the best years in hip hop I can remember. There are some years where you’re like, “man… what is good that’s new?” But this year? Whoa… The summer alone was crazy… but it’s not stopping either… i’m hype so i want yall hype! Here are some new hip hop tracks I’ve been listening to and adding to my Spotify Playlists recently.
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I don’t remember where I first heard D’Angelo but I do remember my earliest memories with D’Angelo. So his passing makes me look back… it makes me dig deep in my memory catalog to match up the sounds and the vibe with where I was at the time and what I was feeling. But then it also fast forwards to where I am now which makes me trip out to see how young D’Angelo is… how old D’Angelo was. Man… We just lost a first ballot hall of fame talent from the 90s fam…. this is devastating.
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Let’s go back 30 years to 1995. Or just go back to the Mid90s as a whole. Rap was major. It was all over your TV, magazines, radio, etc…. it was everywhere… Bone Thugs were out here reppin Cleveland and Do or Die were Po Pimpin all over Chicago…
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There is no better feeling than hearing a new song from 30 years ago you had never heard before. This happened to me recently when I let the Spotify algo do its thing and bring me tracks that fit my sound profile. And here came a track I had never heard…. Within 30 seconds I looked down at my phone, took a screenshot, liked the track, and then pressed rewind. I had to run the track back because HOW DID I NEVER HEAR THIS SONG BEFORE???? Damn…. Here is The B.U.M.S. with “Elevation (Free My Mind)” off of their 1995 album, Lyfe ‘N’ Tyme.
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Yall up on Vel Nine? If you’ve been sleeping, it’s all good fam… I got you. Vel Nine is an artist from Baldwin Park, CA and she has been putting in work in the underground rap scene for a long time and now and she deserves your attention. She reminds me of when Jean Grae aka What What was popping in the 2000s and you ignored the fact that she was a female emcee and you just stood back and said, wow… this is a dope emcee at the core.
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As I write this, it’s the morning of Father’s Day. My 4 year son is asleep on the couch where we had a slumber party last night and my wife is asleep. These early mornings are when I have time to spend with my music while I’m alone for a bit. And on this morning, there’s one track I am playing on repeat. It’s a track from Ed O.G & Da Bulldogs called “Be a Father to your Child” and it’s a song I play every Father’s Day.
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But to the real heads out there…. the real Bone Thugs fans out there… you know what’s up… you know the fact that 99% of the world doesn’t know… I feel like the 1% of us over here are peas in a pod knowing this about Bone… we know the secret and want to tell more people but who of our friends is really going to care some 30 years later? So we just go back to our cassettes, CD’s and vinyl and even our YouTube accounts with this secret knowledge… The secret… Hmmm… Well… what if I tell you that “Tha Crossroads” you know and love wasn’t even on E. 1999 Eternal.
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I woke up to a nice surprise yesterday when I saw the Clipse had dropped their first single for their new project. “Ace Trumpets” is now out on the DSP’s and it’s on their new album dropping on July 11th, Let God Sort Em Out. The track is produced by Pharrell and the whole album was recorded at the Louis Vuitton HQ in Paris… How baller is that though? Pusha T and No Malice are back with Pharrell on the boards? Definitely something to look forward to.
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On that day, I flipped through those CD racks and made it to the D’s when the album artwork of a new CD caught my attention… I didn’t really know the artist but he was sitting on the toilet reading a newspaper with a joint in his mouth… His name was Devin the Dude and the album was, The Dude. Rap-A-Lot Records… 1998… Let’s take you back…
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When you think of 90s West Coast rap, the usual names come to mind… Dre, Snoop, Cube, Pac, Eazy, Too $hort, Quik, Warren G, and E-40. That’s the Mt. Rushmore most people see. But for true 90s gangsta rap heads, the roster runs way deeper… DPG, MC Eiht, Cypress Hill, Mac Dre, Suga Free, Brotha Lynch Hung, C-Bo, Above the Law, and more. Among them, one rapper deserves a place with the legends, Spice 1. With one of the strongest album runs of the decade, a raw, original flow, and feature verses that often stole the show, Spice 1 earned respect nationwide…not just in Cali. He’s one of my all-time favorites, and it’s time he gets his full credit.
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In May 1990, The Source magazine launched its "Unsigned Hype" column to spotlight hip hop artists that were not signed to major labels, giving underground rappers a platform to showcase their skills before securing record deals. Created during a time when independent rappers struggled for clout, the column became a proving ground for aspiring artists. Many future rap legends, including The Notorious B.I.G., DMX, Mobb Deep, Common, and Eminem, got their first national exposure through Unsigned Hype… Here I wanted to look back at the most notable underground rappers featured from the 90’s along with their demo tapes that showed off their talents before they dropped their debut albums and got noticed by the rap world.
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15 years ago, Curren$y dropped his new mixtape Smokee Robinson the morning of the Super Bowl. His hometown squad the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl that day with Drew Brees taking down Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. Every Super Bowl Sunday I listen to this mixtape… Crazy that it dropped 15 years ago… This was the mixtape that gave us the classic track “Life Under the Scope” and it’s worth your time today… Especially with the Super Bowl being held in New Orleans this year.
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What is the best 90’s rap song that you most likely slept on??? don’t worry, I got you… it came from Oakland, CA in 1997 and the track was called “keep it on the real”. here we got 3X Krazy with an absolute smash of a track…
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freddie gibbs is out here rolling one of the best rap campaigns of all time right when halloween is hitting… and the election… wow… gangsta gibbs and freddie krueger out here on billboards with a phone line with some crazy promo… yall sleeping on gibbs? i really hope not… it’s officially gangsta gibbs season.
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"U Gotta Deal Wit Dis" might be the best song of all time. It defies genres... Is it rap? Is it a love song? Is it a 80's freestyle classic out of Cali? The beat is such a smash... The drums... perfection... The raps? The rappppppppppppppppssssss??? The artwork on the cassingle? Do me a favor... stop what you're doing and go listen to this gem from South Central Cartel aka S.C.C. This is a little article about how dope South Central Cartel were and are.
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