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The 20 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2021

The year’s most impressive rap releases included bold moves from Young Thug, Drake, Doja Cat, and Playboi Carti

From top, left to right: UMusic; Republic Records; David Peters; Sacha Lecca

In a lot of ways, 2021 represents one of the most tragic periods in rap history. Over the past 12 months, our sense of loss seemed to outpace our capacity for grief. Before the clock even struck midnight on New Year’s Eve last year, news of the death of hip-hop’s poet laureate, MF Doom, rattled like a shock wave. But rap is also a genre built on resilience, and 2021 saw its biggest artists, in addition to a slate of exciting newcomers, find new ways to balance joy and pain, the prevailing pendulum of emotion in the pandemic era.

There was Lil Nas X, who put to rest whatever fealty to genre or form stubborn rap purists had, with Montero, a textured and confessional album that also finds the “Old Town Road” star really rapping — like, rapping, rapping — while managing to imbue his delivery with the playful pleasure of golden-age dance music. There was U.K. phenom Little Simz’ deeply personal I Might Be Introvert, where she flips gracefully from confronting her own trauma to flexing at a party with ease. Tyler, the Creator’s Call Me if You Get Lost found the rapper finally accepting his own greatness, making for what’s easily his best album.

Rappers spent 2021 in a mood of genuine introspection, which makes sense given that the year was filled with so many reminders of how precious life is. Hip-hop in 2021 felt raw and urgent; Drake and Kanye even settled petty grievances toward the end, perhaps realizing that there’s too much at stake here. The concerns of the real world are as pressing as ever, and that’s ultimately where rap music shines brightest. Here are our picks for the best rap albums from 2021.

From Rolling Stone US

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Mach-Hommy, ‘Pray for Haiti’

It’s fitting that in 2021, Griselda Records, of Buffalo, New York, would come to dominate the rap subconscious. The independent label founded by native rapper Westside Gunn tapped into the year’s hunger for depth like it was its job. Gunn served as executive producer on Newark, New Jersey-based Mach-Hommy’s complete masterwork Pray for Haiti. The album offers a codex of spirit and feeling. With production from Griselda staples like Cee Gee and Denny Laflare, Mach-Hommy takes his distinct vocal precision to new realms. He’s a master of the kind of East Coast rap tropes that still lay as the bedrock of the genre writ large, but with an almost algorithmic level of computational agility, grafting tendrils of references together to cut through to something spiritual. The album’s interlude “Kreyol (skit)” is a recording of academic research on Haitian Creole. It serves as the LP’s guiding thesis, and the reason it will instantly be remembered as a classic. Almost like he were a prophet, Mach-Hommy communicates with what’s hidden in the text. —J.I.

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Playboi Carti, ‘Whole Lotta Red’

OK, sure, Whole Lotta Red came out at the end of 2020. On Christmas Day, to be exact. But the week between its release and the start of this year is irrelevant when you think of what a seismic shift the album represents. Carti stakes ground in the current generation’s sonic sensibility and delivers one of the most forward-thinking rap records since Kanye West’s Yeezus. “That’s my job as of right now. This sound is something that’s going to be regular and relevant in the future,” he told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “That’s just part of creating something new. If this is something that people accept right away, how different is it?” He was right. The album’s fingerprints are all over everything we heard in 2021. —J.I.