Welcome to the post-rap era.
In 2025, the genre is in decline. Except perhaps in France – thanks to a time lag – it is no longer people’s favorite music. It no longer sets the tone. It places fewer hits in the charts. It is no longer the game changer it was for four decades. A sign of this trend: despite very solid attendance statistics, rarely have visitors to Fake For Real voted so little in our traditional end-of-year poll. They are disengaged; they haven’t been inspired. Nevertheless, rap still exists, somewhere, neatly filed, normalized within this vast global sound system. And for those who wish to remain faithful to it, it still has so, so much to offer.
Years ending in “5” have always been rich ones for rap. They have always been fertile. And 2025 is no exception, in the end. Even if the star is fading, even if – after the overpublicized Drake/Kendrick clash that felt like the grand finale of the story – there is no longer a triumphant, consensus album, a great many good things have been released.
If one trend must be singled out in 2025, it takes us back to Atlanta, where a wind of nostalgia is blowing for the early days of trap music, for the late 2000s when Gucci Mane and others ruled supreme. The mood is revivalist, judging by the music of BunnaB, Zukenee and ABGR Lil Cory, the latest Metro Boomin project, A Futuristic Summa, or MexikoDro’s album Still Goin The EP, where the inventor of plugg returns to the time before his own sound.
Elsewhere, as usual, critical attention favors the veterans – those who have long enjoyed a solid fan base (Clipse, and even Mobb Deep). But many others deserve recognition: some elder figures from Michigan (Rio, Payroll Giovanni), the survivors and safe bets of Paper Route Empire (Key Glock, PaperRoute Woo), certified California gangsters (G Perico, Lefty Gunplay, Shoreline Mafia), aesthetes rooted in the New York tradition (Billy Woods, Aesop Rock, Preservation and Gabe ’Nandez), and others still (Niontay); “conscious” rappers of various styles (Ghais Guevara, Backxwash); established experimentalists (clipping.); Brits whose rap isn’t really rap (Jim Legxacy, John Glacier); and many, many more.
A thousand galaxies still illuminate the vast constellation of rap.
A musical genre never truly dies. One day, it simply enters its postmodern stage. And with rap, we are there now. We will probably have to mourn the great shocks: the albums that leave a mark, the rappers who change your life forever. But for those who want to stay home, willing to dig and not passively wait for the next disappointing blockbuster, there will always be something good to feast on.
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