Is Top 40 Going to Play Hip-Hop Again?

When “Not Like Us” exploded last spring, I wrote in the “Song of Summer 2024” preview a few weeks later that it would be even better if we could have new, less combative hits from both Drake and Kendrick Lamar. It may have been an undeniably bravura performance, but at a time with so few crossover Hip-Hop artists, I didn’t particularly want one to humiliate another into early retirement. We needed them both.

Somehow, that happened. Lamar & SZA’s “Luther” is a multi-week CHR No. 1. Drake’s “Nokia” is top 20 pop, not quite commensurate with its streaming and Billboard Hot 100 activity, but still a significant hit, especially when you consider that Billboard earnestly asked last year if Drake should just quit. 

Lamar is also represented at CHR by “Squabble Up” and “TV Off.” Along with Doechii’s top-5 “Anxiety” and top-25 “Denial is a River,” Hip-Hop is starting to have a footprint again at Top 40. Further down, there’s Bad Bunny’s most CHR-friendly recent record in “EoO.” There’s Don Tolliver’s first potential CHR hit in “Lose My Mind,” with the help of Doja Cat. 

It’s still a tentative rebound. “Nokia” is at least in the top 20 with momentum. Each week, Liveline host and Mason’s Observations columnist Mason Kelter points out other streaming/request stories that Top 40 is resisting, particularly Lil Tecca’s “Dark Thoughts” and BigXThaPlug f/Bailey Zimmerman’s “All the Way.”  

Those songs are at least on the board. Tyler, the Creator’s “Like Him,” a song that The Hit Momentum Report’s Matt Bailey regularly champions, has almost no CHR spins. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the objection to any of the songs is sonic, or if it’s the depth of titles that is the issue now. “Like Him’s” Burt-Bacha-rap feel doesn’t sound like typical CHR, but it is sort of a piece with “Ordinary” and “Die with a Smile.”

If playing too many Hip-Hop titles is what PDs are concerned about, my advice is the same as it was during the discussion about Country crossovers over the last two summers. At this moment, there still aren’t so many hits that Top 40 should be missing any. As long as the supply of hits from other genres is good, and there’s available mainstream pop to play in between, it’s actually the balance that signifies a healthy Top 40 format. 

I’m happiest when Hip-Hop crossover presents itself as “Anxiety” — tempo, melody, familiar sample — rather than a ballad, but I’d be happy to hear tempo anywhere on our charts now. I’m happy about “Luther” for other reasons, particularly giving Luther Vandross his second posthumous No. 1 pop record, and bringing back Cheryl Lynn to the radio while she can appreciate it, as well as another go-round for “If This World Were Mine.”

Over the years, I’ve found myself writing both the “why isn’t there more R&B and Hip-Hop?” column and the “why isn’t there more mainstream pop?” column. I’ve never regarded that as a contradiction. In recent weeks, I’ve felt better about the mainstream-pop supply as streaming legitimizes Sombr’s “Undressed” or Role Model’s “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out.” The only reason not to put either of those songs next to “Dark Thoughts” is because it kind of fits in that pool, too, sonically.

I hope the increased supply of Hip-Hop hits and big-name artists is a good thing for R&B/Hip-Hop radio as well. In recent years, that format has responded to the rise of “TikTok rap” by leaning more heavily on ballad and midtempo R&B than any time in the last 35 years, the time before the radio station most committed to Hip-Hop always won.

Whether it’s because of streaming, lost earbuds listening, or something else, R&B/Hip-Hop radio is waiting for its rebound, too. It’s impressive that streams have given us as many Hip-Hop Hot 100 hits as it has so far, but we’ll see even more if the format’s reach improves, and CHR will get more lateral support on more types of music, not just Country.

With the Song of Summer 2025 field taking shape over the next two weeks, it’s interesting to consider whether that song could come from Hip-Hop, or whether, as with “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” last summer, it will be a largely unclassifiable song with Hip-Hop elements (that one ended up taking hold at every format except R&B/Hip-Hop radio, as it happened). Top 40 will be in a good place if it has both options.