Key Takeaways:

• Clipse, Cardi B and JID delivered standout albums that sparked main conversations in 2025.
• Several long-awaited initiatives lastly dropped, together with Playboi Carti’s music and Wale’s all the pieces is quite a bit.
• The listing highlights each chart-toppers and hidden gems, like Monaleo’s Who Did The Body.

hip hop was alive and properly this yr, regardless of rap momentarily dropping out of the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 40 for about two weeks. There had been huge excursions, main collaborations amongst a few of our favourite artists, and above all, loads of nice albums to carry onto for years to return.

For one, 2025 was the yr when a number of long-awaited albums lastly arrived. Cardi B dropped her sophomore LP, AM I THE DRAMA?, after seven years of ready and a number of delays. Playboi Carti delivered his closely anticipated follow-up to Whole Lotta Red with the huge 30-track providing music. And then there was Clipse, who returned with their first venture in about 16 years.

There had been different albums we’d’ve cherished to incorporate — like Lil Tecca’s DOPAMINE or PLUTO’s fittingly titled PLUTO WORLD — however our year-end lists can solely maintain so many. With that stated, listed here are the ten greatest rap albums of 2025.

10. YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s MASA

For the primary time in roughly 5 years, YoungBoy Never Broke Again was capable of tour once more. Ahead of his Stateside area run, he dropped MASA (brief for Make America Slime Again). The sprawling 30-track venture launched months after Donald Trump pardoned the Baton Rouge rapper in May.

Considering MASA was NBA YoungBoy’s second of three full-length releases in 2025 (and along with his deliberate fourth venture, Slime Cry, nonetheless unreleased on the time of writing), it’s honest to wonder if followers actually wanted one other LP so quickly. That’s particularly since he’d already launched 5 initiatives throughout 2024 and 2023. While MASA did introduce highlights like “Where I Been” and “Fire Your Manager” that includes Playboi Carti, the sheer quantity of music comes with an apparent draw back: Repetition is inevitable.

9. Monaleo’s Who Did The Body

Monaleo impressed us in each which approach all year long. On Who Did The Body’s opener, “Life After Death,” she wrestles with the thought of what comes after we’re gone, with “Dignified” selecting up the place that left off. Elsewhere, she unites with Texas legends like Bun B, Paul Wall, Lizzo and Lil’ Keke.

There are moments, like “Open The Gates,” the place Monaleo displays on dropping shut associates and late rapper Enchanting, that counsel she might’ve benefited from giving herself a little bit extra respiratory room instrumentally. However, she finds that area fantastically on “Diary Of An OG” and “Bigger Than Big,” the latter on which she takes us to church. Overall, there are a variety of goodies on Who Did The Body.

8. Wale’s all the pieces is quite a bit.

The proven fact that Wale remains to be giving us albums like everything is a lot. after greater than 20 years within the recreation is truthfully outstanding. His flows and lyricism haven’t light one bit, and also you hear that clearly on songs like “Conundrum” and “Belly,” the place he flips Soul II Soul’s “Back To Life.” Saving the options — Leon Thomas, Odeal, Ty Dolla $ign and others — for the top turned out to be pure chef’s kiss. After listening to the venture and seeing how little mainstream consideration it obtained, it’s onerous to not really feel like Wale actually is likely one of the DMV’s most underrated rappers.

7. Gunna’s The Last Wun

The Last Wun finds Gunna assembling a few of Afrobeats’ brightest stars — and the only a few collaborators who’ve caught by him — for one among his most expansive initiatives to this point. With Turbo guiding the manufacturing for many of the journey, the duo takes listeners on a full-blown marathon. Gunna comes out swinging on highlights like “him all along” and “just say dat,” unites with Burna Boy for “wgft,” and stands his floor on “cfwm.”

When The Last Wun first got here out, there was hypothesis that this is likely to be his ultimate launch beneath Young Thug’s YSL Records imprint, because the two nonetheless haven’t reconciled. Whether that formed the music or not, the LP carries a sure starvation and a darker tone that units it aside from Gunna’s earlier albums. Even so, the manufacturing’s repetitiveness holds it again.

6. Tyler, The Creator’s DON’T TAP THE GLASS

DON’T TAP THE GLASS locations Tyler, The Creator in our greatest rap albums of the yr listing for the second yr straight. Unlike 2024’s CHROMAKOPIA, which carried a extra mature and generally darker tone, his ninth studio LP strikes in a brighter, bounce-heavy direction — a lot in order that labeling it strictly as “rap” doesn’t inform the entire story.

The 10-song venture begins with Tyler laying out a number of expectations: “no sitting still,” “leave your baggage at home” and “don’t tap the glass.” On “Big Poe,” he introduces the venture, whereas the very subsequent music, “Sugar On My Tongue,” turns his inventive power right into a attractive, upbeat romp matched completely by its vivid visuals. The LP begins off robust, however issues sadly taper off because it goes on.

music“>5. Playboi Carti’s music

“You now locked in with the flyest n**ga on planet Earth,” DJ Swamp Izzo declares on the finish of “MUNYUN,” one among a number of highlights on Playboi Carti’s long-awaited music (shortened from its earlier I AM music). The Atlanta rapper teased, delayed and reshuffled the album so many occasions — together with on launch night time — that it’s onerous to pinpoint when anticipation truly peaked. What issues is that when it arrived, followers acquired precisely what they’d been ready for after which a little bit extra.

Like lots of 2025’s most talked-about albums, music homes greater than sufficient songs to get misplaced in or latch onto. To title a number of huge moments: Carti reunited with The Weeknd for an arguably much less satisfying replay of “Timeless” on “RATHER LIE,” tapped his self-proclaimed “evil twin” Kendrick Lamar for the magnetic “GOOD CREDIT,” and reaffirmed his heavyweight standing on songs like “MOJO JOJO” and “LIKE WEEZY.”

After scoring one of many yr’s largest rap debuts, it’s onerous to not surprise if this would be the final time we hear from Carti for a protracted whereas after the mud settles.

4. Lil Baby’s WHAM

Considering how usually Lil Baby was criticized for all his songs sounding the identical throughout and after It’s Only Me, his comeback album WHAM was a nice shock. Released in January, the 19-track venture got here with a way of urgency that had seemingly been lacking from the artist for some time. On the opener, “Listen Up,” he declares, “This time, I’ma show ’em, get in a whole different bag / Everybody can talk it, but they ain’t standin’ how I stand up.”

The first six songs function the album’s crux, thanks largely to Young Thug’s first visitor verse since his jail launch on “Dum, Dumb, and Dumber.” Elsewhere, GloRilla pulls up with some much-needed power on behalf of the women on “Redbone,” whereas Rod Wave and Rylo Rodriguez show to be Lil Baby’s most dependable collaborators on “By Myself.”

The again half of the LP holds up simply as properly, particularly with the manufacturing on tracks like “99” and “Idol.” One factor the report makes clear is that Lil Baby nonetheless has it. Hopefully Dominique continues constructing on that momentum and trims the few weak spots that popped up alongside the best way on its predecessor.

3. JID’s God Does Like Ugly

Dreamville Records artists have lengthy carried that underdog label, with that being very true in JID’s case. Being the elite lyricist that he’s, the East Atlanta rapper dropped God Does Like Ugly in August. It’s one of the crucial diverse initiatives we have heard this yr, from the Ciara-assisted “Sk8” turning into an sudden skate anthem to Baby Kia scream-rapping on “On McAfee.”

Across God Does Like Ugly, JID proved he can discover many sounds whereas nonetheless conserving what makes him so interesting as an artist. It won’t have been as commercially profitable as another albums talked about right here, however a few Grammy nominations are nonetheless loads to write down residence about. As he reminds us on “YouUgly,” “And fans argue ’bout record sales like they record execs themselves / It’s like we all under a spell and still, I hope this message reaches you well.”

2. Cardi B’s AM I THE DRAMA?

After years of ready for AM I THE DRAMA?, Cardi B knew she couldn’t return with something lower than a statement-making sophomore album. She got here in swinging on “Dead,” rattled a number of rap girlies with “Magnet” — particularly JT and Nicki Minaj — and opened up about all the pieces from the pressure on her estranged marriage to the methods she’s grown as a lady.

The album’s sprawling tracklist (23 songs, or 33 when you rely the Ultimate Edition) provides listeners loads to wander via. Some tracks go proper for the jugular; others are a bit extra private, and all of them are price listening to. “Safe” basks within the consolation of being chosen, whereas the BIA-aimed “Pretty & Petty” and “Killin You H**s” see Bardi clearing out anybody who doubted her.

That being stated, AM I THE DRAMA? isn’t excellent, largely as a result of the album runs longer than it must. “Bodega Baddie” sounds prefer it belonged on her long-teased Spanish LP, Selena Gomez doesn’t add a lot to “Pick It Up,” and three consecutive songs about her marital struggles with Offset are a bit robust to get via. All issues thought of, the LP is a worthy addition to Cardi’s discography, and if her subsequent venture is extra centered, it might realistically sit beside her no-skips debut, Invasion of Privacy.

1. Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out

Returning after a 16-year hole since their final album is cause sufficient for Clipse to make this listing; nonetheless, Let God Sort Em Out is rattling close to an ideal venture. For one, they didn’t repeat the errors of Playboi Carti and Cardi B by stuffing their albums to the brim to make up for misplaced time. Instead, followers acquired an extremely well-curated, 13-track album government produced by Pharrell.

Let God Sort Em Out opens with the tear-jerking “The Birds Don’t Sing,” on which Pusha T and Malice replicate on the lack of their dad and mom. From there, we get the brothers’ lyricism at its peak on “Ace Trumpets,” only one observe after Pusha T despatched pictures at Travis Scott on “So Be It.” Another factor that works within the album’s favor is the options: Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, The Creator are real Clipse followers, not simply marquee names (although that half is true too, particularly in 2025).

Though rap is commonly touted as a younger man’s recreation, it’s fairly spectacular how a lot Clipse’s comeback album resonated with just about everybody.