Drake, J. Cole, and Lil Uzi Vert are the only rappers with all of their studio albums at number one on the Billboard charts. This the third time his album got number 1 on billboard.
Hip-hop, which has gone more than half the year without topping the chart, finally receives its first Billboard Number One album of 2023,thanks to LIL UZI VERT and their new album Pink Tape. This would be a remarkable delay for the genre. This year, the streak has been one of the more popular topics of conversation among hip-hop experts and industry observers as they try to figure out what is going on.
Although the Albums chart has received most of the attention, hip-hop’s drought extends beyond Number Ones. According to chart information on the most popular albums for the first half of 2023, older rap songs and other genres are having a harder time competing with new hip-hop as a whole.
Only three hip-hop albums from this year—Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains, Lil Durk’s Almost Healed, and NF’s Hope—are among the top 25 most-streamed hip-hop albums of 2023, which is significantly fewer than it has been during the previous six years.
Over the past five years, that number has been steadily declining: the top 25 rap albums had 13 albums that were released that year, a 76 percent decrease from this year.
