The POW 100 Best Rap Songs of 2024

[Low End Derrick]

As always, the same rules apply: one song per featured artist –with exceptions for Kendrick and Future because they are Kendrick and Future.

“Singles” prioritized over deep cuts, American rap only, West Coast over everything. Your favorite song didn’t make the list because we are vengeful and biased creatures.

Releases from POW Recordings artists are not included, but songs from Phiik and Lungs’s Carrot Season, Kent Loon’s Swamp Water, Gabe Nandez’s Object Permanence and False Profit, Chester Watson’s montisona, and any of Fatboi Sharif’s projects certainly deserve inclusion.

No owls were harmed in the making of this list. – Ed

The POW Best Rap Songs of 2024

We know the (subjective) truth

www.passionweiss.com

Spoiler: 100-51

100. Joey Valence & Brae ft. Danny Brown – “PACKAPUNCH”
99. Chito Rana$ – “Dead Man Walking”
98. Cypress Moreno feat. ASM Bopster & 03 Greedo – “DRUMLINE”
97. Conrdfrmdaaves feat. OTM – “Big Body”
96. stoneda5th feat. Remble – “War”
95. Key Glock & Young Dolph – “Let’s Go (Remix)”
94. Denzel Curry feat. That Mexican OT – “BLACK FLAG FREESTYLE”
93. Zelooperz – “Euphorbia Milli”
92. VonOff1700 – “On Deck”
91. YN Jay feat. Babyfxce E, Rmc Mike, Bfb Da Packman, Louie Ray, KrispyLife Kidd, Ysr Gramz & GrindHard E – “Flint Stones”
90. Angry Blackmen – “Stanley Kubrick”
89. Talibando – “W.D.W.”
88. RiTchie ft. Niontay – “How?!?
87. EBK BCKDOE – “House Games”
86. Quin Nfn feat. 03 Greedo – “House Call”
85. HOODLUM – “New Cadillac”
84. Quadry – “I’m Wrong”
83. Saviii 3rd – “w r o n g i d e a”
82. Babyfxce E – “PTP”
81. ShrapKnel feat. Controller 7, Curly Castro & PremRock – “Deep Space 9 Millie Pulled A Pistol”
80. G Perico feat. Steelz – “Toxic Love”
79. Chicken P feat. 42 Dugg – “People’s Favorite (Remix)”
78. Nino Paid – “Pain & Possibilities”
77. LAZER DIM 700 – “Asian Rock”
76. Hurricane Wisdom – “Giannis”
75. Quando Rondo – “Life Goes On”
74. RXKNephew – “Walmart”
73. SieteGang Yabbie – “Gix in Da Mornin”
72. Cavalier & Child Actor – “Knight Of The East”
71. LaRussell, D-LO, P-Lo, Raymon Marco & MALACHI – “YANKIN!”
70. Seafood Sam – “Can’t Take the Hood to Heaven”
69. Papo2004 & Subjxct 5 – “Had 2 Ball”
68. Ghostface Killah feat. Method Man – “Pair Of Hammers”
67. Boldy James & Harry Fraud feat. Tee Grizzley – “Cecil Fielder”
66. LL COOL J feat. Nas – “Praise Him”
65. Mutant Academy feat. Quelle Chris – “Liberation”
64. Chris Crack – “Card Declined At The Abortion Clinic”
63. CEO Trayle – “4 And A Quarter”
62. Heems & Lapgan – “Accent”
61. MILC – “Rose Parade”
60. Glokk40Spaz – “My Last Breath”
59. J.U.S & Squadda B – “Don’t Do Drugs”
58. Stunnaman02 – “Eat A Salad”
57. Meet The Whoops – “Where I’m From”
56. Heembeezy – “On My Own”
55. AKAI SOLO – “FORTNITE”
54. Z Money feat. Valee – “What Happen”
53. Erika de Casier feat. They Hate Change – “ice”
52. Rich Homie Quan – “One of Quan”
51. OT7 Quanny – “Get That Money”

 

[Low End Derrick]

50. Big Sad 1900 – “4AM in Los Angeles”
49. DaBoii – “Fresh out the County”

48. Suga Free & Sporty feat. Mitchy Slick – “Get Cha Mind Right”

Suga Free remains the undisputed champion of slick talk, no matter the age, no matter the era. “Get Cha Mind Right,” off his Street Communion album with the very SEO-unfriendly Sporty features Mitchy Slick, the much-easier-to-google San Diego legend, and is objectively the 48th best song of the year. There’s a stunning, stuttering beat by Cricet, the San Diego lifer who’s been around long enough to have sung the hook on MC Hammer’s “Sultry Funk” way back in 1995, that feels tailor-made for strolling down an avenue in a Carolina Blue tuxedo (no shirt on underneath, natch). Okay also, while researching for this blurb I found out that MC Hammer is super into AI now and identifies with the “effective accelerationism,” or e/acc movement. Like, I get that Hammer’s from the Bay and probably got put on to this stuff through being booked for cushy tech industry gigs, but also, come on, man — Suga Free lives in the woods and spends all day fishing. That seems like a way better way to live your life.

47. CUZZOS – “POP OUT”
46. Loe Shimmy – “For Me”
45. Sexyy Red – “Get It Sexyy”
44. Jay Worthy, DāM FunK & A-Trak ft. Ty Dolla $ign, Channel Tres & DJ Quik – “105 West”

43. Freddie Gibbs – “On The Set”

Even in the streaming environment, when listen counts tend to heavily favor the first few songs on an album, the album closer remains an important position on a record. There are a few different ways that rappers tend to approach this assignment; valedictory tracks summing up the album’s themes, lighthearted vibey tracks with jokes and shoutouts, or laments in remembrance of people who are no longer with us. Freddie Gibbs chose to close his back-to basics album You Only Live 1nce with “On The Set” an idiosyncratic take on the latter, a “dead homies” track that sees him paying tribute to fallen rap peers and beginning the complicated process of reckoning with Diddy’s role in hip-hop culture as he spends the holidays behind bars.

In between mentions of his burgeoning acting career, Gibbs pays tribute to the fallen Rich Homie Quan, Young Dolph, Nipsey Hussle – his own personal “In Memoriam” segment for the kinds of acts who are rarely remembered at award shows. However, his thoughts on Diddy are the most intriguing part of the song. At first, he seems almost rueful that “they got” the controversial producer, that even someone with the level of fame, wealth, and power that Diddy amassed leading Bad Boy can be prosecuted. Then he describes some of the awful things that Diddy is accused of doing, not making judgements necessarily, just describing the void that is left at the top of the culture now that this important chess piece has been removed from the board. Gibbs ponders Diddy’s situation having been exonerated for his own crimes, closing this record on an understandably down beat.

42. Armand Hammer ft. Benjamin Booker – “Doves”

41. Ka – “Such Devotion”

Let’s take a step back and pretend this is just a rap single. Plenty has been written about the fact that it’s not.

When The Thief next to Jesus dropped, it first felt easy to decode from track one: a gospel-themed Ka album in which he comments on the state of “dummy rap” from a plateau of righteousness. But by the time you reached “Such Devotion” — the rare video single hidden in the final third of an album — and you remembered that nothing in Ka‘s life and work has ever been non-complex, non-conflicted.

Throughout the record, Ka tackles Christianity, the fragility of faith, the sociopolitical function of Church (white and Black), its potential and hypocrisies from every angle. With “Such Devotion” he‘s bringing it all back home. It’s a metaphor not only for determination and believing in yourself despite the cruelty of one’s past, but also a testimony to surrendering to the creative act.

“Such Devotion,” like the rest of the album, is self-produced. Under the song’s YouTube video you can find Montreal-beatmaker Nicholas Craven going, “bro this might be the greatest Ka beat of all time.” He has a point. A lot of Ka‘s beats are low key going hard, and this one in particular, just minus the loud drums and overproduction. “Such Devotion” is the skeleton of a banger. He treats it as such by spiking up the intensity of his voice every time the chorus comes around.

As for our initial premise: of course, it doesn’t work. This album will never not be examined, felt, celebrated outside of the devastating context of Ka’s passing. Instead, this song specifically remains a stark reminder that indeed “we’ve never seen such devotion” from any MC of Ka’s generation. In or outside the booth.

40. Bfb Da Packman ft. Rio Da Yung Og – “Olympic shyt Talkin”
39. YL & Starker – “Boyz 2 Men”
38. PLAYERRWAYS & GmoneyDt ft. Swifty Blue – “20 Ball”
37. Lefty Gunplay – “Walk Em Down”
36. Babyface Ray ft. Veeze – “Wavy Navy University”
35. A$AP Rocky ft. Jessica Pratt – “HIGHJACK”

34. Roc Marciano – “Gold Crossbow”

There’s a moment near the end of “Gold Crossbow” that feels like Roc Marciano’s thesis statement for this stage of his career: “shyt isn’t new, we need a reboot/They took what we do and repeat the loop/It’s gettin’ easier to sleep through.” Marci’s solo career is a long, unparalleled run of innovative and influential street rap that laid the groundwork for the fertile underground we have today. Dead-eyed hustler tales recast as brown acid psychedelia? A return to trudging, grey skies boom bap? Drumless beats? Thank Marci — he has a legitimate claim to the title of Greatest Of All Time. Even with outsized influence and a nearly unimpeachable discography, he keeps showing up at regular intervals with another piece of work that proves no one can do it better.

What’s most interesting about “Gold Crossbow” is how it shouldn’t work. There’s no bassline to speak of, and the rudimentary piano sample that sits at the front of the mix is glassy and uncanny, almost chintzy. The drums feel too perfectly quantized to be organic, sounding as though someone in the next room hit the demo loop on an old Casio keyboard. But when you submit to the song’s hypnotic hold, you can catch the gravity of Marci’s threats. “Motherfukkers got the gall to call my phone/Talkin’ ’bout the bullet holes in your daughter room/That’s the warning when you ignore the rules” is especially chilling. He’s a menacing auteur, a deft world builder who continuously offers fresh blueprints for us to study.

33. HBK Jachi – “It Ain’t Nun”
32. MIKE & Tony Seltzer ft. Earl Sweatshirt & Tony Shhnow – “On God”
31. ZAYALLCAPS – “boof”
30. MAVI – “the giver”
29. Ralfy the Plug – “EL PRESIDENTE”
28. Rome Streetz & Daringer – “Starbvxkz”

27. ScHoolboy Q – “THank god 4 me”

When ScHoolboy Q raps, “If I die right now, I’m fine”, you might take this as some kind of fatalistic, Makavelian foreboding. And perhaps there is a shadow of it in there. We are listening to an anti-snitching anthem, after all. But rather than threaten those that might snitch, Q just strings words together with an exuberant, almost reckless joy.

Examine that drop after 40 seconds. A lesser rapper would’ve ridden out the majority of the song to that menacing beat, content to watch the mosh pit rage for as long as it doesn’t tire. But Q actually switches back to the breezy flute melody after a mere minute of it, and then sticks with it for the rest of the song. It’s a masterclass in “less is more” restraint.

26. Tyler, The Creator ft. GloRilla, Sexyy Red & Lil Wayne – “Sticky”
25. X4 – “Trophy Flow”
24. Bruiser Wolf ft. Chris Crack – “Crack Cocaine”
23. Banditdamack – “Free The Messmakers”

22. Future – “LIL DEMON”

It was an odd year for Future, simultaneously on the margins and at the center of culture, releasing two instant classics which semi-inadvertently loosened a great, world devouring evil that overshadowed all of them. As such, the “patron saint of misogyny,” the generation’s preeminent toxic king, somehow was also the safest mainstream entity of 2024? While the titans of industry made conflagrations of their public goodwill, Future dropped THREE No. 1 albums. But Mixtape Pluto isn’t his two pop blockbusters with Metro Boomin. It’s a sparse, featureless 17 tracks of no-nonsense trip-trap. And “LIL DEMON” is a particularly Future-ass Future song, with muddied 808s and a percussive, unflappable base flow. Noses are wiped, bales are imported, fiends fund yachts, and the ever-expanding cadre of b-words all have princess cuts.

Southside’s beatwork is both minimal and spacious. “LIL DEMON” would’ve sounded comfortable on the Monster / Radical / 56 Nights triptych. In a music landscape where surprises usually connote bad news and expiration dates are hyper-accelerated, Future won his year by being precisely who he’s always been.

21. Kendrick Lamar – “squabble up”
20. E L U C I D – “THE WORLD IS DOG”

 

[Low End Derrick]

19. Maxo Kream – “Bang The Bus”
18. Doechii – “NISSAN ALTIMA”
17. Drexthejoint – “Bounce Out”
16. Drakeo the Ruler ft. Ketchy the Great & Ralfy the Plug – “No Hard Feelings”
15. BigXthaPlug – “The Largest”
14. Rio Da Yung Og – “RIO FREE”
13. Playboi Carti – “H00DBYAIR”

12. Mach-Hommy feat. KAYTRANADA & 03 Greedo – “#RICHAXXHAITIAN”​

You’d be surprised how many of your favorite critics are stunningly cheap and petty when it comes to how they decide what artists they fukk with. It’s a supposedly objective medium that can turn on which outlet you decide to give an exclusive to for an album rollout, depending on how self-important the wrong powerful establishment writer might be. To quote Mach himself, how much “They make mountains out of mole hills”.

I say all this because if you subscribe to this flavor of retail level beef, I shouldn’t like Mach-Hommy’s music. He didn’t invite me to his big fancy listening party for this album when it came to New York at the beginning of the year, not that I care about that sort of thing obviously, and I generally find him way too self-aware as a public figure in the culture – one who’s constantly trying to stage direct how we think and talk about him and his music.

And yet, Mach-Hommy made my album of the year. Why? Because I keep it so fukking real, and because it’s so fukking good. What is this electro-shocked inspirational pop song with Kaytranada and Greedo taking on Nate Dogg duties doing in the middle of this grungy, neo-Gza album? Why is it the eponymous track? Why do I want to sprint through a chain link fence whenever I hear it? For a guy who understands his aesthetic- the kind of beats he works the best over, the tone of each project- better than any rapper in his class, it’s a shocking gambit, a startling left turn for the L.A. transplant. He fukking nails it. He’s as comfortable spitting aspirational “Juicy” lite auto-bio shyt in between soaring, Route 1 with top down Greedo hook, as he is spitting dense conspiracy-laden album cut verses in Creole and pidgin Jersey. So congrats to Mach-Hommy, a genius-level artist who made a great song and a great album, even if he annoys me sometimes. Just, you know, invite me to the next fukking listening party, bro.

11. Wizz Havinn ft. Luh Tyler, BossMan Dlow, Loe Shimmy & C Stunna – “4AM at Coffee Zone”
10. Young Slo-Be – “Are You Responsible”
9. Nef The Pharaoh ft. 03 Greedo, Wallie the Sensei & ShooterGang Kony – “Hot Boyz”
8. GloRilla – “Yeah Glo!”
7. El Cousteau ft. Earl Sweatshirt – “Words2LiveBy”

“Words2LiveBy” completed Earl Sweatshirt’s transformation from angsty teenage exile to sly, slick-talking big bro. Musically, this rebrand began somewhere around Sick! (2022), where Earl shed the madness and abstraction of his previous two projects for upbeat, enlightened clarity. When this song dropped, everybody knew it was official.

Earl outside in a backpack, smirk-rapping over trap-adjacent production on a hot NYC night, while someone twerks for the low budget camera, feels like a vindictive triumph. A visual confirmation that he is, indeed, alright. Classifying Earl’s lyrics as anything too far removed from something like Future has long been a mischaracterization. It’s the presentation that differs. From “Making the Band (Danity Kane)” to “2010” to this verse, Earl’s sound has evolved without losing his essence. He’s come a long way but he’s always been here. Poets don’t stop being poets just because they’re no longer tortured.

Any isolated line of Earl’s could make a case for bar of the year, like a Godiva variety pack. “I’m not okay, but I’m gonna be alright” and “Free Gaza, we on the corner like Israelites” are the two most people pluck out on a casual listen, but the entire verse has near zero fat. Especially not, “Put on some weight, now I feel like a lineman.”

El Cousteau gets outshined on his own album, but “Renegade” moments don’t exist in the viral age. The song’s success is both a celebration of the DMV scene’s inevitable 2024 mainstream breakthrough (assisted by the inescapable Tommy Richman) and a crossover hit for the Brooklyn transplant underground. El Cousteau didn’t settle for one-hit virality, following through with his biggest and best album yet, Merci, Non Merci. His shell necklace and leopard-print hat are as loud and flashy as his flow. With “Words2LiveBy” and “Real Hip Hop,” Niontay’s song that he, Earl and MIKE also feature on, El Cousteau is in good company. The more fun they have together, the better off we’ll be.

6. Skrilla – “GOD DAMN”
5. EBK Jaaybo – “Boogieman”
4. Luh Tyler ft. BossMan Dlow – “2 Slippery”
3. Future & Metro Boomin ft. Kendrick Lamar – “Like That”
2. Cash Cobain & Bay Swag – “Fisherrr”

 

[Mr. Negative]

Weiss

 

[Low End Derrick]

1. Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us”
​

There are the normal follies of human miscalculation and the cataclysmic failures of the condemned. It’s important to know the difference. Anyone can absent-mindedly forget their wallet after smoking too much weed under star projectors, or accidentally seduce their incarcerated mentor’s girlfriend after a passionfruit tequila seltzer binge. You can always buy a new wallet or get a tattoo sleeve of your bosses face to apologize.

But there are the mistakes generated by a fatal flaw in character, an excess of delusion and ego, a transgression against the Gods or natural laws governing the universe. What the Greeks called hubris – one of the most prominent examples of which occurred when the gifted young weaver Arachne, was transformed into a spider because she said that if she wasn’t better than Athena, she was the closest one. After “Not Like Us,” Drake has yet to morph into a singing owl in a gilded cage, but his fate might be actually be worse. He’s been reducing to Christmas livestream giveaways with Adin Ross.

Let me remind you how avoidable this all was. Kendrick let off a tame boast on a 16-bar guest verse over the “Everlasting Bass” beat. He claimed what anyone with common sense already knew. He didn’t belong anywhere near the other two in J Cole’s holy trinity (if there was a modern 2010s Big 3, it was Kendrick, Future, and Young Thug). Meanwhile, Cole saw what was coming and wisely receded into the hazy mist of a North Carolina tobacco field. But Drake, the certified legal boy, has been too strung out on compliments for over a decade now. In retrospect, he should he should have reconsidered his “no new friends” policy because he exhibited the type of irrational and impulsive behavior that comes when you have no real allies left to tell you the truth – other than maybe a middle-aged Quebecois henchman with a sex trafficking conviction.

“Push Ups” had a few funny lines. Drake could’ve probably gotten away with it, too. But gambling addicts always double down, and there’s no way for Drake to understand how disrespectful “Taylor Made” must’ve seemed to Kendrick. By turning Kendrick’s artistic north star into a cheap AI gimmick, it mocked the entire culture and tradition of the West Coast. By calling him a coward in front of the world, he dared him to reveal his hand. There was no other choice.

The gambit will go down as one of the worst unforced errors in recorded history: right up there with Napoleon invading Russia in the winter, Apollo Creed agreeing to a friendly exhibition match against Ivan Drago, and Abraham Lincoln deciding to attend a light comedy on Good Friday at Ford’s Theater. This is the Hornets trading the rights to Kobe Bryant away for Vlade Divac and 24 cartons of imported Serbian cigarettes. It was like watching a small bird of prey drown in the La Brea tar pits.

A more conclusive defeat is unimaginable. When you respond to a diss song by saying the phrase, “the Epstein angle was the shyt I expected,” you haven’t just lost the rap beef, you have been mass exorcised. When you sue the biggest record company in the world for allegedly faking streams to make your rival look better, you have not only been defeated, you are in danger of being deleted from the record books like you got caught taking performance enhancing drugs (or using Quentin Miller one too many times).

“Euphoria” and “Meet the Grahams” operated as a de facto ninety-five theses. They highlighted the reasons why Kendrick despised Drake: his fake accents and fake abs and fake hair, the child hiding, the weird issues with women, the exploitation of his safe “nice guy” mainstream appeal, his cynical reliance on hip-hop for pre-fab credibility, the numbing apolitical nature of his lyrics, the habitual lies, the shady manipulation, the fake mob boss talk mixed with empty virtue signaling to increase the peace, the time he wore this outfit, the ghostwriting, the way in which Drake admittedly never stood for anything but money and the city that he was from. And even the city that he was from was provisional – a Potemkin CN Tower to be swapped on his next vacation to Houston or Atlanta or Vegas.

Kendrick said it himself: this was about morals, integrity, and discipline. He viewed himself as a 20th Century man in a 21st Century nightmare. Drake as the Moloch embodying what has become warped and demented; Kendrick playing the vengeful Old Testament prophet, arriving to immolate false idols. In Drake, he saw the hollowness of post-modern belief: the idea that authenticity is a false construct; that the self is merely something to be manipulated for digital rewards; that nothing matters in a cartoon reality. Kendrick refuses to believe that in an algorithmic age, a sense of roots, noble purpose, and adherence to art-first precepts are not vital concerns.

“Not Like Us” was bigger than hip-hop. Kendrick was fighting for the very notion of a personal soul and the soul of a culture, which has been corrupted for so long that anything goes. And when you are warring for what you believe to be sacred, you are often possessed by nearly invincible strength. You can even write a diss song that becomes a dance song that becomes a HBCU marching band anthem, which even gets cringe spins at the DNC.

The genius of “Not Like Us” is that you can interpret it however you want. There will always be an “Us Vs. Them.” It has jock jam simplicity and hierophantic possibility. It has goofy playground dozens insults for people to chant and an extended third verse metaphor about Drake as a cultural carpetbagger in post-trap Atlanta. It has Mustard supplying what sounds like the napalm strings from “Ether” and the best double entendre ever made about pedophilia and music theory. The Dodgers played it when they won the World Series. It salts the earth with a shaker taken from Tam’s. This is what ‘Pac was talking about when he said that “my .44 [will] make sure all y’all kids don’t grow.”

Drake apologists are quick to point out that Kendrick is an imperfect vessel (even though this was the entire point of Mr. Morale) And it’s true that Kendrick overtly cribs slang and flow from Drakeo and EBK without acknowledgement. But you can just as easily point out that this is the entire point of “Not Like Us.” In a diluted, screen-damaged world, where regional traditions and pockets of cultural idiosyncrasy are in danger of fading away, “Not Like Us” is a reminder of the power of what cannot be easily mimicked. This is in Kendrick’s DNA.

It’s all made explicit in the video: The TDE reunion at Nickerson Gardens, the crip and blood walking, the Compton courthouse, the obligatory Tam’s shots, the krumping and the Tommy the Clown cameo, even DeMar DeRozan returning home from Canadian exile. This is a stadium anthem and a personal mission statement, a world-beating diss song and a ferocious affirmation of hometown pride and creative integrity. The world Kendrick celebrates might well be on its way to disappearing, but it’s a reminder that what was possible yesterday remains possible tomorrow, provided the same values, beliefs, and ideals are applied. Evolution is essential, but some things are timeless. The audience may occasionally get fooled, but they’re not slow. – Jeff Weiss

 

[Yecht]

Outside of the few undeniable big hits (Like That & NLU), this list is the whose who of who gives a fukk

 

[Low End Derrick]

Outside of the few undeniable big hits (Like That & NLU), this list is the whose who of who gives a fukk

I suppose it'll be if one only listens to pop music