Best Hip-Hop Albums Of 2024
Source: pgLang
What a year we had in rap music!
Career-altering beefs, debut projects that gave promising hope for the genre’s future and the official rise of sisters doing it for themselves all contributed to this being one of the most memorable eras in hip-hop history.
When it came to the album releases we saw this year, it felt like everyone put their best foot forward in the booth to deliver something worthy of winning “Best Rap Album” at the 2025 GRAMMYs. While we think The Recording Academy got it right for the most part, the nominees at this year’s ceremony only begin to scratch the surface of how great hip-hop was in 2024.
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Each of the 10 albums that complete this list were submitted by staff for a multitude of reasons. Some focused on a project’s impact over its sales, while others more understandably went with a commercial juggernaut. You’ll find both the fellas and the females got love, and we also did our best to keep regional biases out of the decision-making process. Still, we can’t say for sure that a tad bit of favoritism didn’t come into play, so don’t be too salty if your emcee of the year didn’t make the cut!
Overall though, we think this list properly represents the heavy hitters that reigned in hip-hop over the past 12 months. Whether you helped to make Kendrick Lamar the genre’s official “Big Me,” cheered Megan Thee Stallion to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in her war against the Barbz, welcomed the collaborative efforts between Common and Pete Rock or simply saw GloRilla as the ‘glowing’ star that she is, we think you’ll find it easy agreeing with our top 10.
Keep scrolling to see our staff picks for the Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2024, and feel free to sound off on who you think we got right and/or who you would’ve chose instead:
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS:
KEENAN “HIGz” HIGGINS
J.R. “BANG” DAVIS
NIA NOELLE
PAIGE BOYD
MATTHEW “MATTY WILLZ” WILLIAMSON
KYA KELLY
JAMAAL BACHELOR
