the only thing i can think of is the beastie boys starting as a punk band before turning to rap

let's exclude artists who have rap side projects or aliases but primarily do other genres

Chris Brown

kenny beats

drake

lets also exclude modern r&b artists who make melodic rap songs

the brysons pnds chris brown tory lanez etc

I don't think there are any at all. literally. Can't say Mike Shinoda because Linkin Park was rap adjacent.... yeah I dunno man.

Ecco2k earliest music is electronic music I think

Bladee was in a band before he started rapping

Doja Cat

her first release:

not a rapper

smh

bladee is a rapper objectively mehn

He dabbled

getter/terror reid

i’d be damned if swiss or whatever tf niggas tried to tell me they objectively rappers lmao

and i like their music a lot but cmon

i’ll give bladee some leeway but if ecco’s a rapper then wtf are we talkin ab

well he makes rap music and rap albums rapping over rap beats so we call that a rapper

thats more of an alt persona/side project, i mean full on switched

Wu Tang Clan used to be a Surf Rock band until ODB hit some PCP & threw a James Brown vinyl that missed GZA's head, landed on RZA's vinyl player & then glitched to loop Funky Drummer

lil ugly mane was doing noise and black metal before rapping

Remember when The Neighbourhood dropped that mixtape

Beastie Boys are probably the best example tbh

Kobe Bryant tried his hand in basketball and sexual assault before attempting to rap

technically skepta grime then hiphop