For hip-hop fans around the world, the past month has been a real breath of fresh air with the biggest names in the game deciding to take the gloves off, cut the sneak dissing, and go at each other’s necks to prove who the best rapper breathing is in 2024. If you don’t already know, I’m referring to the beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, as well as Drake’s other 832 rap beefs and the Chris Brown and Quavo beef which recently escalated to boiling temperatures.
This change of pace now has group chats nationwide arguing in all caps about who’s allowed on the short list of elite rappers. Does the big three of hip-hop consist of Drake, Kendrick, and J. Cole? One thing is for certain— New York rappers have not been given a proper seat at the table.
As a professional proponent of New York rap, watching us gradually lose national attention and respect has been tough to stomach, especially during a time in which we’ve brought a lot of that classic hip-hop culture and sound back towards the mainstream. So, I think it’s about time that “Top 5” conversation comes around to us.
As a preface, I’m not gonna try to convince you that this list is simply objective fact that you’d be dumb to argue with, because I’m well aware of my own biases; I love gritty boom bap and underground, jazz influenced hip-hop over most other sub-genres. Don’t take it personally if I don’t list your favorites, as there can never be an objective ranking in something as abstract as art.
I should add that I will only be considering New York rappers who have put out music in the past couple years. I also have no intentions of using commercial success as any kind of measure for lyrical ability (I’m looking at you Aubrey). I’m purely assessing who I feel deserves to be listed among the top MCs in New York. So, as we all sit and wait for Kendrick to drop a damn verse already, let’s take a look at some of the top rappers coming out of New York this year.
- MIKE
There aren’t very many rappers on Earth that can compete with MIKE’s discography at this point. As both a rapper and a producer, he’s consistently pushed the envelope of creativity by digging deeper into his bag with every single release. With three albums under his belt in the past year, he’s one of the most consistent rappers right now period. And as opposed to a lot of highly commercially successful artists at this time, it’s practically impossible to predict the sound and flow of a new MIKE album.
His versatility can’t be understated, as he quickly responded to Twitter’s allegations of his 2023 album Burning Desire “scaring the hoes” by dropping Pinball, a collaborative album with producer Tony Seltzer filled with vibrant trap beats and bars that’ll make your face scrunch up. MIKE’s music is often deceivingly introspective & personal, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to have fun on the beat. If you haven’t tapped in yet, I highly suggest you stop sleeping on the most underrated rapper in the game.
- Conway the Machine
Listening to Conway often gives me the same feeling as watching an NBA player put up 50 points on the scoreboard. At first, it damn near made me stand up and start cheering at my speaker. Now I just smile and nod knowing old heads across the country are being forced to admit that real rap never died.
At 42 years old, he still raps like he’s 18, trying to get the bills paid. On every song he’s featured on, you can hear a distinct hunger to be the coldest one on the track. Conway embodies the spirit of hip-hop in a way that’s consistently inspired both his peers and his OGs in rap, with cosigns from hip-hop giants like Jay Z and Eminem.
- Action Bronson
When it comes to New York rap, Action Bronson stands as a longtime heavyweight champion. Bronson brings a unique flavor to hip-hop that’s impossible to ignore once you’re exposed to it. His beat selection is unpredictably diverse, from jazz fusion to inspirations from rock & roll, and his bars are impossibly unpredictable.
Bronson’s ability to paint vivid, hilarious pictures with his rhymes combined with his dexterity with hard, gritty bars is what sets him apart from the crowd as one of the most entertaining voices in hip-hop. His sound can sometimes turn away from the classic New York boom-bap style, but his sharp, punchy delivery never fails to remind you where he hails from.
- Stove God Cooks
He’s only put out one album in 2020, but for several years he’s been proving himself as a strong contender for rap’s sixth man of the year, featuring on countless tracks from the Griselda roster and adjacent contemporaries. He’s incessantly proven that a Stove God Cooks feature on your song is like a cheat code.
I know somebody’s out there scrunching their face in repugnance at the idea of putting Stove God over the likes of Westside Gunn and Benny the Butcher, the people who put him on the map in the first place, but at the end of the day I’m not sure there’s anybody in Griselda with bars and delivery as electric as him. The style he’s capable of bringing to a song is nearly beyond peer in the NY scene, and he has the lyrical ability to keep up with the heaviest hitters in the game.
- billy woods
billy woods’s music sometimes doesn’t feel like rap, but instead an amorphous literary expression of an esoteric mind. He fluently appraises American culture, capitalism, trauma, and the meaning of blackness, while waiting to weave in a few bars that’ll make you laugh from your gut. Sometimes I’m not sure if we’re even meant to understand every bar, but for this reason his music lends itself to being constantly replayed.
Before I ever listened to a solo billy woods song, my friend told me that this guy might just be the greatest rapper alive. In truth, I thought his recency bias was hitting craaazy and he was just really excited to find another rapper whose lyrics often need to be read to be comprehensively understood. Now, although I still haven’t listened to enough of his discography to justify any higher placement on this list, in terms of writing ability, I can at least agree that billy woods is 1 of 1.
