“I will say, I’m concerned,” says Carl Cherry, Spotify’s creative director and head of urban. Cherry says he’s been alarmed about rap since last year: “2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, those years felt magical. My concern is that the magic is gone.”

There’s a variety of reasons the genre’s future feels precarious. First, rap’s superstars like Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Post Malone are aging into a different chapter of their careers, less invested in chasing hits. This year, Drake dropped the dancefloor detour, Honestly, Nevermind, while Kendrick made the deeply personal Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and Post Malone released his darkest album yet, Twelve Carat Toothache. The albums debuted with respectable numbers, but slid down the Billboard 200 relatively quickly after — and while each of their previous albums spawned Hot 100-topping smashes (“God’s Plan,” “HUMBLE,” “rockstar”), this time, between the three of them, only Drake’s “Jimmy Cooks” went to No. 1, where it lasted a week. Post told Billboard earlier this year, “I don’t need a No. 1; that doesn’t matter to me no more, and at a point, it did.”

“The last couple of years, we’re not seeing as many new stars emerge,” says Cherry. “From 2015-2018, there were just a lot of guys we would see seemingly come out of nowhere and become huge stars and put up numbers that would rival people that have been established. We’re not really seeing that right now.”

It’s not like we haven’t seen breakout rappers in 2022 — artists like GloRilla, SleazyWorld Go and Yeat are talented and may have bright futures ahead of them. But with the exception of Yeat, their success is tied to hit singles and they haven’t established their bonafides via full-length projects. While they’ve performed impressively for newcomers, they haven’t put up near the superstar-type numbers Cherry refers to.

Meanwhile, some of rap’s most promising upstarts have seen their fortunes turn quickly. DaBaby’s 2020 album, Blame It On Baby, moved 124,000 album-equivalent units in its first week; after a couple of underperforming projects rehashing the same formula, 2022’s Baby On Baby 2 moved a mere 17,000 in its first week. Megan Thee Stallion won the Grammy for best new artist, but her Traumazine album did lower first-week numbers than her debut and it hasn’t spawned a hit close to “Savage.” Roddy Ricch scored the last major pre-pandemic No. 1 hit with “The Box,” but his last single as a lead artist, “Stop Breathing,” has yet to hit the Hot 100. One of 2022’s bright spots was watching Gunna ascend from Young Thug protégé to standalone star as his “Pushing P” became the kind of cultural meme rap routinely produces, yet his achievement was overshadowed when he and Thug were arrested on a RICO charge that may land them both in prison for years.

"rap’s superstars like... Post Malone"

mid steppers underperforming should tell you enough

“2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, those years felt magical. My concern is that the magic is gone.” Wow he posts here

Drake don't drop a hiphop album and the game in disarray... he carrying

"My concern is that the magic is gone"...after you sucked the s*** dry for all those years.

just enjoy the decline

First rap album of 2022 to hit 1Billion streams, who’s underperforming?

He mentioned Post malone instead of Future...

Average 23 year old

Future doesn’t fit his narrative he had one of his most successful years lol

yikes

Despite all these worries, there have been bright spots this year. Future is enjoying his biggest commercial year yet, with his I Never Liked You album posting the best solo first-week numbers of his career and “WAIT FOR U” becoming his first Hot 100 No. 1 as a lead artist. Lil Baby, Jack Harlow and Moneybagg Yo continue to be proven hitmakers. Rod Wave, Polo G and YoungBoy Never Broke Again are cult artists with huge followings. Doja Cat, Lil Nas X and The Kid LAROI toe the line of rap and pop, but have put up big numbers with their albums and scored massive crossover hits on the Hot 100.

We need another Ja

Saying the magic is gone when YB dropped 3800 Degrees just a couple weeks ago

everything after astroworld has been boring

This the most hater s*** oml

Suddenly don’t wanna play numbers games when it isn’t proving your point

who is SleazyWorld Go

He didn’t wanna call it repetitive and boring because y’all don’t allow that to be said about certain people

Your acting like this dude is the CEO of hip hop