Usually, when rappers go on an Instagram Story rant, it is barely articulate, and viewers are not getting anything valuable or pertinent out of it. This is not to say that all rappers are dumb, because a lot of them certainly aren’t. They’re often just emotional.
But would you believe me if I told you I was taken aback by something Trippie Redd said a few weeks ago? You’d probably question where my head is at, but I promise this goes somewhere.
Redd said in this particular rant, “Rap doesn’t have any young superstars anymore.” He went on to mention that labels are signing rappers who don’t hold nearly the same star power as previous artists like Lil Uzi Vert, XXXTentacion or Juice WRLD.
What took me aback was the fact that, when you look at the state of rap in 2026, he’s kind of right. The genre is declining before our very eyes, basically yielding to other genres and forcing us to listen to throwbacks to remember the good times.
The good is still good. “Let God Sort Em Out” by Clipse from last year was a legendary drop, as was “GNX” by rapper Kendrick Lamar. But Lamar is 39, and Pusha T and Malice have been in the game for 32 years.
Where is the future going?
Relying on rappers who have been in the game for decades is not exactly an effective way to keep the genre afloat, especially when you have artists like singer-songwriters Olivia Dean, Billie Eilish and Bruno Mars dominating the charts.
According to the Associated Press report on Luminate’s 2026 midyear report, R&B and hip-hop combined accounted for 41% of U.S. album-equivalent consumption in 2023. That share fell to 30% in the first half of 2026. In 2025, the hip-hop genre completely disappeared from the Billboard top 40 for the first time since 1990. From 2023 to 2024, the genre saw its top 40 entries cut in half, going from 16 to eight.
I think the biggest tell that Redd is onto something is the decline of the XXL Freshman classes. Every rap fan remembers 2016, when artists 21 Savage, Denzel Curry, Kodak Black and Lil Uzi Vert went viral for their XXL Freshman Cypher. For a while, we rap fans really looked forward to when those cyphers dropped each summer.
Fast-forward to this year, and none of the artists who appear on the cover can be considered mainstream. The 2026 class included artists Chris Patrick, Belly Gang Kushington, Slayr, La Reezy, Trim, Trap Dickey, Babyfxce E, Hurricane Wisdom, YKNiece, Skrilla, Sosocamo and Miles Minnick.
Know any of them? Me neither, and neither do the charts or the Grammys. The 2026 class did not enter the Billboard Hot 100’s top 40, nor were any of its members nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
The magazine has done a good job of finding star power and giving artists recognition, but as the years go on, it seems increasingly difficult to find rappers with potential to reach that level. The earlier XXL Freshman classes appear to have produced a deeper pool of artists who reached the Hot 100’s top 10. The newer classes have breakout stars here and there, but the key question is how many from those classes have achieved mainstream chart success? The classes from 2016-20 accounted for 28.8% of the top 100, but that number dropped to 5.7% for the 2021-23 classes, and it has continued to decline since then.
And then there’s the Drake anomaly. Yes, Drake continues to sell, he was the highest selling rapper of the last 11 years as of 2025. He’s hip-hop’s Taylor Swift, but the public is catching on to his lack of creativity after the Lamar beef, and his originality was in question even before that.
His repetitive themes and reliance on collaborations over music quality have diminished critics’ opinions and public perception. “Honestly, Nevermind” did not land with a lot of his main audience, and the “Iceman” trilogy has been more about quantity than quality. Now, he’s dressing up on the internet as a “goth baddie.”
In the words of actor Michael B. Jordan, “Is this your king?”
His early work was masterful, but he’s about to turn 40, and his critical reception and public perception continue to decline despite his sales and chart numbers remaining formidable. He can still make hits, but I’m not sure he can make albums anymore. The album used to be more meaningful to hip-hop than the hit, and we seem to have lost sight of that, with Drake perhaps being the biggest example.
When Drake goes, when Kendrick Lamar goes, when rapper J. Cole goes, who are we turning to? Or will we continue to listen to these guys in the hopes they keep rap alive and well through their 50s? That’s how you end up with projects like “Tha Carter VI.” If the direction hip-hop is heading in means a bunch of “Tha Carter VI” projects, then I will continue to listening to Olivia Dean.