New w33kly is in - listen, follow, share! 🎧

In the past few weeks, I’ve seen a new conversation brewing online in hip hop circles, a spirited debate about who will lead the genre into the future. In our typical human way, we seem to insist on something new while being resistant to change, in love with what we have but ashamed to hold on to it for too long (dramatic, but not wrong). This year, we already saw Bad Bunny break Super Bowl records and barriers while performing almost exclusively in Spanish, but just last year it was Kendrick Lamar raising the bar for viewership while rapping about things many Americans also couldn’t understand without subtitles. His beef with Drake during the long lead-up to that performance was actually sparked, in part, by a familiar, ongoing debate: the “Big 3” of hip hop. The other rapper in that conversation, J. Cole, politely recused himself for peace of mind then proceeded to drop his 24-track The Fall Off album with a “Trunk Sale” promotional run in his Civic. A candidate for hip hop’s top-3 shortlist, promoting his extensive album the same way he would have done before he had any fans. It feels like a marketing gimmick if you’re being cynical, but anyone hip to his career would argue that it was a sincere move from a rapper who has famously remained loyal to himself and to his fanbase.

The remnants of that Big 3 debate seem to have had a trickle-down effect across the industry - one that loves to fight about its legacies and traditions while spotlighting one-hit wonders, then aggressively jockeying to predict the next one. We’ve reached a bit of a turning point, as people are realizing we can’t keep debating the same old rappers forever. In the recent bits of media I mentioned earlier, the Spotify Next Gen poll and the OTR cypher, it’s easy to spot the differences. I’ll note that each platform brings its own biases and controversy, Spotify for its well-established and dubious role in the “industry machine,” and OTR for many questionable features that are almost as common as their great finds.

To be clear, this isn’t a head-to-head comparison - these publications had different objectives, one being more explicit, but the resulting debates bring us to a similar conversation about the future. The Fader says the OTR rappers “saved the cypher” - I don’t know that it’s officially been dead, but that side of the culture sure could use some more visibility. Spotify’s list was exclusively artists who have been in the public eye for years, with notable representation, collaborations, and accolades. The cypher featured artists, on average a few years older, who are much more underground but already boast fanbases and catalogs that will keep them in the conversation for years (think Freddie Gibbs, Larry June, Griselda). The most significant overlap is likely that Doechii and Ray Vaughn are both signed to TDE, a unique label with plenty of longevity on its roster and a solid indicator of the common ground in this conversation.

But these two angles still don’t account for the tens of artists at the top of their respective lanes who have shown potential to keep the pace: Playboi Carti is 27, Lil Uzi is 30, Lil Baby is 31 - they can keep the lil, baby, and boi in their names for a few more years at least. If that’s too old for you, what about Yeat and YoungBoy at 26? They’re easily outpacing all of these artists today, with years to go if they can “stay out of trouble”. Drake turns 40 this October, so I’m really not sure what the cut-off is for future contenders. If anything, my biggest conclusion for now is that the talent pool is actually quite full - we may need to start with more than 8 or 10 artists if we’re going to have the right debates and eventually come up with an answer.

At the same time, the current old heads don’t seem to be losing too much steam. The Cool Kids just rereleased an old Don Cannon-produced mixtape with bonus tracks and features from Ludacris, GLC, Bun B, and Ryan Leslie (wow). Jill Scott dropped too, with DJ Premier production and appearances from Tierra Whack, Trombone Shorty, Too $hort, AB-Soul, and JID. The Alchemist has produced yet another album with Larry June and Curren$y about expensive cars and more expensive juice smoothies. The Clipse performed at the Vatican, and Andre 3000 has made even more odd music since the flute moment. I bet 50 Cent would be releasing more music too, if his documentary career weren’t going so well. The point is, the OGs will eventually need to pass the torch for all this to work, but many of them still seem pretty hungry.

All that said, a couple of community members have already expressed an interest in exploring the topic with me this year, so the conversation will continue. I listen to plenty of music, but my opinion is just one take among many and I’m by no means the realest head out there. I look forward to getting some more voices together and diving into this one - I’m sure Billboard and Spotify and the Fader will tell us they have the answers before the summer is done, so let’s see what this this community has to say about it too.

Nothing too fancy here, we were just due for an album dump. I’ve had a lot to catch up on, so I’ve included some highlights here - they’re roughly in order of how much I like the artist personally, but otherwise this is just a round-up, not a ranking.