By Inka Rantakallio

In late October 2025, Billboard broke the news that for the first time in thirty years, there were no rap songs in the top forty of the Hot 100 singles list. It seemed as if decades of assumptions of rap as a fad had finally been proven right. One of the year’s hits, “Luther” by rapper Kendrick Lamar and eclectic singer-songwriter and fellow TDE (Top Dawg Entertainment) artist SZA, had by then also exited the top spots after a run of several weeks. While the situation was in part due to a change in Billboard’s rules concerning ‘recurrent’ songs (songs exceeding a certain duration on the chart), no new rap songs made the cut.

Although other rap songs soon appeared in the top forty of the Hot 100 list, the news of rap’s apparent downfall came as a shock. Rap has grown, thanks in no small part to its sibling genre R&B, into the most popular form of mainstream music during the streaming era. In 2017, the media audience measurement company Nielsen’s data showed that the genre category ‘R&B/hip hop’ had become the most consumed in the United States. In terms of streaming, this was still the case in 2025 according to data company Luminate.

The ebb and flow of rap’s popularity is nothing new. When rapper Nas declared “Hip Hop is Dead” two decades ago with his provocative, eponymous 2006 single and album, the 2000s’ pop market had been saturated with club rap and pop rap à la 50 Cent, Timbaland, and the Neptunes, commercial rap by the likes of Lil Wayne and Jay-Z, and trap and crunk by “dirty south” artists such as Lil Jon or autotune pioneer T-Pain. Sacrificing lyricism for rhythmic and sonic innovation did not sit well with those hip-hop heads who missed the golden age of rap (late 1980s and early 1990s) and its poetic and political content. Some consequently jumped on the discursive bandwagon of hip hop’s demise when southern rap’s soundscape began to dominate the mainstream.

But the south may have helped rap to retain something that many today seem to forget: its roots. Hip-hop scholar and professor Anthony Kwame Harrison, whose work focuses on Black culture and popular music, explains that “twenty-first century rap music’s connection to the American South has maintained hip hop’s fundamental association with Blackness. This doesn’t mean that non-Black artists are illegitimate; it just means that they are understood as (and understand themselves as) participating in a Black music form.” Those Black sounds vibrate through and define much of mainstream rap today also here in Finland.

Finnish rap became the most popular mainstream genre in Finland in the 2010s. It redefined the sound of local pop, as testified by radio, streaming, and sales charts, where Finnish rap has now ruled for more than decade. More seasoned artists and newcomers of the genre will be seen at Flow this year when Ares, DJ Kridlokk, Bizi, ibe, Keiju, and others take the stage. But some of the biggest mainstream stars in Finnish rap—most notably Gettomasa and Sexmane who have both performed at Flow in the past—are not part of this year’s lineup.

In the United States, rap is seemingly experiencing a slump similar to the end of the noughties when rap superstars like Drake and Kendrick Lamar were yet to come. The two artists made their mark in the early 2010s and now arguably rule the rap throne together (although not in a friendly manner, as seen in the highly publicized beef roughly two years ago). Kendrick Lamar has performed at Flow Festival twice, whereas Drake is yet to set foot in Finland. Even if Drake cannot be credited as a great lyricist, his combination of crooner R&B, highly danceable Afrobeats, and rap shook the masculine norm of the genre and helped make him one of the biggest artists of the century. Meanwhile, rap’s darker subgenres, trap and drill, dominated the 2010s and offer a striking contrast to the more melodic, bright sound of current pop.

This may offer a clue as to why rap is seemingly no longer the mainstream juggernaut it once was. When pop music and R&B consolidated their influence on mainstream rap in the 2010s and many rappers started singing—which would have been unfathomable in the 1990s—they perhaps inadvertently dug a grave for rap.

And let’s not forget the worldwide success of rapper Bad Bunny. Reggaeton carries the legacy of rap in its DNA, but artists like the Puerto Rican star are often siloed into the Latin charts in the United States. Thus, the rap mainstream may partially exist elsewhere.

The Finnish R&B producer-artist Misha, who has collaborated with numerous US artists and made rap music under the alias Haamu, agrees that rap is now pop mainstream but less distinguishable: “Rap’s influence on popular music was so strong that its boundaries as a genre began to blur. Mainstream rap became pop, just like rock music. Rock didn’t die, either.” He continues: “I think that mainstream rap has, to some extent, ceased to reinvent itself. It didn’t go anywhere, though, but rather merged with other forms of popular music: R&B, K-pop, Afrobeats, Reggaeton, Hyperpop etc. At the same time, many producers who first became big thanks to hip hop, for example Pharrell Williams, Timbaland, Dr. Dre, Kanye West, Scott Storch, and Benny Blanco, took rap aesthetics straight into the heart of the pop world.”

It is impossible not to hear rap’s influence in current pop songs; most of them have some element borrowed from rap, whether it’s the production style or delivery. One great example is the world’s most successful K-pop band BTS’s recent album ARIRANG which features major league hip-hop producer Mike Will Made-It on several songs.

At this moment, rap as a genre label seems more ambiguous than ever, and much of this is due to structural and other changes in the music industry. Even if genre tags are still a relevant shorthand for navigating streaming services and social media, their meaning seems more arbitrary than before. Besides streaming, also social media, COVID-19, and AI are making it increasingly difficult to build a solid fan base in the (short) attention (span) economy. Although gaining recognition in the music game has never been easy, achieving momentum as a rap artist (or artist in any genre), not to mention longevity, is arguably even harder today, when even a major label deal no longer guarantees a spot in the limelight.

Many are quick to point to the declining quality of rap. Familiar arguments include: everybody sounds the same; rappers cannot perform live; rappers have nothing to say; and rap isn’t rebellious like it once was. Indeed, some artists are reluctant to call themselves rappers, as the genre label feels either constricting or just plain embarrassing.

But rap listeners and fans still value great bars and flow. This is exemplified by the Virginia duo Clipse. The duo’s comeback—notably last year’s Pharrell Williams produced, Grammy-nominated album Let God Sort Em Out—has garnered critic and fan love alike and moderate chart success. The other half of the duo, Pusha T, has graced Flow’s stage on two occasions, and the Clipse will undoubtedly receive an enthusiastic response this year. True skills cannot be faked, and in the age of AI garbage and cynically commercial TikTok music, authentic craftsmanship both attracts and entertains those who still have the bandwidth for focused listening. Professor Harrison notes that mainstream rap has always featured this duality: “The qualities that have been most valued in mainstream rap have oscillated between, for lack of a better characterization, music that encourages mass movement (strong and simple basslines and lyrical cadences) and music that displays complex poetical lyricism. The current standing of artists like Kendrick Lamar and Clipse are a strong example of the latter.”

Further, real rap fans care about content and delivery, not about whether rap is mainstream or not. Rather, many prefer that rap stays underground and raw. Harrison does not trust the mainstream, either: “Mainstream consumers and audiences have a tremendous impact on producers and performers. Positive feedback and market success incentivizes artists to continue along certain paths intended to replicate their prior achievements. But in underground spaces, success is defined differently or audiences are smaller and more discerning. I think something suffers when succeeding in the marketplace is the driving force around the creation of art. This is what mainstream industries do; and I do not trust mainstream audiences in steering artforms.”

The situation at hand has led to conversations about who will be the next generation of innovators who will carry on rap’s legacy and longevity. Spotify’s campaign earlier this year attempted to define the ‘new leaders of rap’ with eight pre-determined artists that listeners could vote for. The campaign was met with ridicule online. Clearly, the streaming platform does not hold the authority to make declarations concerning the state of rap, or its future, in the eyes of the culture, i.e., hip hop’s stakeholders, listeners, and fans who either accept an artist as their own or don’t. A commercial entity cannot make such decisions on their behalf based on charts.

Another reason for the apparent crisis may be the untimely passing of many of the trap and drill era rappers, such as JuiceWRLD or Pop Smoke, who could have potentially become the new rap superstars. Hip-hop culture has always been able to renew itself through new generations and innovation, borrowing from different popular music genres from country to metal. But having lost many of these younger artists, hip hop’s renewal process was stunted.

Optimistic music journalists are now writing think-pieces of a reset that will launch hip hop into its next era of growth and cultural imagination. Some suggest that we are looking in the wrong direction for new rap innovators. Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Doechii, and other women have brought styles and personae that are quintessentially hip hop not only in terms of storytelling, lavishness, and badassery, but also in terms of the artists’ socially engaged real life endeavors. Cardi B has met with progressive politicians and spoken openly about the struggles of immigrants and working-class people. Megan Thee Stallion has a charity foundation supporting education and housing in underserved communities, and she has used her voice to spread awareness about mental health issues and violence that Black women face. Although Cardi’s and Megan’s music may not be socially conscious—whereas Doechii’s music most certainly has this range—the real-life engagement reflects the deeper ethos of hip hop as communal, politically aware culture.

While rap currently has a diminished presence on the charts compared to its heyday, another form of Black music, R&B is having a moment. The two genres have been in sync for decades. In the 1990s, R&B artists frequently sang the hook or the chorus on rap songs. And vice versa: the most successful artist of that decade, Mariah Carey, often had rappers feature on her songs despite her record label’s objections, for example. Currently, R&B is experiencing a renaissance with artists like Kehlani and Leon Thomas (the latter also performed in Helsinki in March 2026 as part of the ‘Mutt’ world tour) who also collaborate with rappers. Given the current popularity of R&B in many countries—US, UK, and France to name a few—the small number of R&B artists in Flow’s current lineup is slightly surprising. This assumably testifies to the difficulty of booking agents to attract hot new artists to visit Finland. With the Russia-Ukraine war ongoing, Finland is de facto edge of the world, and a detour at best for touring artists. Further, R&B plays a much smaller role in the Finnish music scene compared to many of the aforementioned countries. Nevertheless, Canadian-bred British Jamaican singer Rochelle Jordan, who blends R&B with electronic dance music, will grace Flow Festival with her presence. Of the local R&B-adjacent artists set to perform at Flow, Louie Blue is among the best to emerge in recent years. F is another local pop artist who blends R&B seamlessly with other genres, including rap. Soul singer Emilia Sisco, who relies on a lush retro sound and a full band, is a must-see. Those of us looking for a dose of groovy, emotional music will be catered to.

By now, rap music has been around for roughly 50 years. This history makes arguments about its demise seem unfounded. Also, could rap ever have reached mainstream status without being subsumed by pop? And does the current paucity of rap songs in the US mainstream music charts really entail rap’s lessened cultural influence? I am inclined to think that the answer to both questions is no.

Inka Rantakallio is an award-winning music scholar, editor, freelance music journalist, and DJ. In her research and teaching, she has often focused on rap music, and she has also hosted a radio show and podcast on rap. Currently, she hosts the R&B show MOTIONS at Ida Helsinki online radio.