Beats and bars: a sneak peek into 2024’s most anticipated rap albums
Zafir Nagji, Staff Writer
The modern era of music has been unquestionably dominated by hip-hop. According to a Luminate report, rap was the most streamed genre of music in the United States, accounting for just over 25 per cent of all on-demand music streams and equating to 277 million units earned. Some of the biggest names in this sect of the music industry include Drake, Nicki Minaj, Travis Scott, and Gunna, all of whom spent significant amounts of time in the Billboard Top 100 for their 2023 projects.
This year is set to build on the precedent that 2023 set, with the “OG’s” of the game making their way back into the industry. Here are some of the projects lovers of the genre should be looking forward to in 2024.
January already gave us some amazing albums to tune into, including Teezo Touchdown’s How Do You Sleep At Night?, Benny the Butcher’s Everybody Can’t Go, and Joey Bada$$’s Passports and Suitcases, to name a few. 21 Savage also contributed to January’s music selection with his immensely acclaimed album, American Dream, along with Kid Cudi and his highly touted project, INSANO.
However, the release that stood out the most came from one of rap’s oldest and most infamous names, The Game, whose project, titled Paisley Dreams, brought the sounds of the two decades he dominated in, the 90’s and 00’s, back to the future. Of course, with Hit-Boy on production and Big Hit as the co-performer on the album, the 29-minute-long project had no skip-worthy tracks and truly felt like it came right out of the mean Compton streets that The Game made his name rapping about.
February will be a love affair for connoisseurs of the genre and has already gotten off to a strong start as two of the greatest producers in the game, Hit-Boy and The Alchemist, released their near-perfect collaborative project, Theodore and Andre. Offset, Dizzee Rascal, Fivio Foreign, and British rapper Ghetts are some of the other notable names set to drop their albums this month, and Soulja Boy has already blessed us with his project, Swag 6.
However, none of these garner the same level of anticipation and excitement as the feature album of the month, Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures. Despite being massively delayed from its original December release date, the album promises to live up to the high bar set by the Chicago rapper and is set to release on Feb. 9, barring any more postponements.
Most notable about this album is that West is still able to put out his artistic projects despite the numerous controversies that have been following him recently and ending many of his brand partnerships. Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have brought about an end to the control that record labels hold over artists with unfriendly distribution deals. This, in turn, has benefitted smaller artists looking to start their careers and bigger artists whose talents have been forgotten about because of their age or controversies in their personal lives.
Vultures will be expanded in March with the release of Vultures Vol. 2, along with many other highly anticipated projects. Schoolboy Q and French Montana are two of the biggest names set to drop albums, bringing their signature drug-game sound back into the mainstream. One of the most influential artists in this subcategory is also gifting the world with a new album, with Chief Keef bringing Almighty So 2.
Many albums are still in production at the moment and resultingly do not have an officially confirmed release date, as beyond March, the only confirmed releases are Vultures Vol. 3 in April and Polo G’s Hood Poet, which is set for August. That being said, so many of the most legendary names in the game are making their presence felt in 2024. Stay tuned for one hell of a year in this generation’s most listened-to genre.
