What a difference a year makes. From the sounds that captivated rap fans to the trends that took over, hip-hop has offered many hits in different ways over the last 365 days. That motion translated heavily on the charts. There’s stiff competition when the game’s biggest rappers go up against leading pop and country stars for the coveted Billboard 200 top position. While pop had a steep rise last year, hip-hop, paired with R&B, reigned supreme as the most popular streaming genre.
“R&B/hip-hop continues to be the No. 1 streaming volume in the U.S.,” said Jaime Marconette, Luminate’s VP of music insights and industry relations, during a 2024 year-end webinar released this past January. “Just about one in every four audio streams last year was R&B/hip-hop. So it gives you a sense of just how dominant it has been, however, it is facing increased competition. Its piece of the streaming pie is actually down 2.3 percentage points since last year as other genres continue to grow.”
That dominance over the last year led to top dogs like Kendrick Lamar, Future and Travis Scott, among others, landing No. 1s on the 200 chart. Out of the three, an acclaimed rerelease of Days Before Rodeo from La Flame earned him the highest first-week sales overall with 361,000 units. He holds the title of being the rapper with the biggest album debut in 2024. Close behind is K-Dot’s GNX with 319,000 while Future had three projects hit the highly sought-after chart position last year with varying top-notch numbers for each.
Three months into 2025, and the culture has continued to celebrate its big wins. Albums from Playboi Carti, Lil Baby, Drake and others locked in more No. 1s during these last three months. Rap may have a little less of the streaming pie in this new year, but the artists and fans are still eating.
Read More: Drake’s First-Week Sales for Every Project He’s Dropped Prove Why He’s on Top
Take a look at the biggest first-week numbers for hip-hop during the last 365 days—from March 2024 to March 2025—below.
