What’s the difference in a year? From fascinating rap fans to taking over the trending sound, Hip-Hop has provided many hits in different ways over the past 365 days. This movement translates extensively on the chart. The competition is fierce as the game’s biggest rapper competes with leading pop and country stars for the coveted Billboard 200 top spot. Despite Pop’s sharp rise last year, hip-hop paired with R&B ruled Supreme as the most popular streaming genre.
“R&B/HIP-HOP remains the number one traffic in the U.S.,” said Jaime Marconette, vice president of music insights and industry relations at Luminate. “Only one of every four audio streams last year was R&B/Hip-Hop. So it gives you an idea that it’s dominant, but it faces an increase in competition. Its streaming has actually dropped by 2.3 percentage points since last year as other genres continue to grow.”
This dominance last year led to top dogs like Kendrick Lamar, Future and Travis Scott, among others, ranking first. Of these three, a few days of re-releases won him the first week’s highest sales and 361,000 units before the LA Flames rodeo. He holds the title of rapper for the biggest album of 2024. Lagging behind K-Dot’s GNX, 319,000, while Future three projects hit the top-notch rankings last year, with each project’s top-notch numbers different.
By three months of 2025, the culture continues to celebrate its major victory. Over the past three months, the albums of Playboi Carti, Lil Baby, Drake and others have locked in more number 1s. There may be less streaming of rap in this new year, but artists and fans are still eating.
Read more: Drake sells for each project’s first week
Look at the biggest first week numbers in hip-hop music in the past 365 days (from March 2024 to March 2025).
