The Top R&B, Hip-Hop & African Stories

Having performed as a special guest during Dr. Dre’s 2022 Super Bowl extravaganza, Lamar leveled way up in September. That’s when the NFL announced that he’d headline the 2025 Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show — just the second rapper to do so. The news sparked disappointment for New Orleans native Lil Wayne and among his peers and fans. But Lamar had already weathered another high-profile debate with Drake in the spring after Lamar’s guest verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s Hot 100 No. 1 “Like That.” The ensuing back and forth culminated with Lamar’s viral anthem in May, “Not Like Us.” The mega-hit reigned for two nonconsecutive weeks atop the Hot 100 and shattered the record for longest tenure at No. 1 on the Hot Rap Songs chart: 21 weeks. Then came Lamar’s surprise album GNX in late November, which became his his fifth Billboard 200 chart-topper, bowing with 319,000 equivalent album units and scoring the year’s biggest streaming week for any R&B/hip-hop album.  

Coming next year: Lamar and SZA will team up for the 19-stadium Grand National Tour. More important, however, is that the Pulitzer Prize winner’s culture-shaping hit “Not Like Us”— nominated for five Grammys, including record and song of the year — not only reinforced Lamar’s innate lyrical prowess and rhythmic flow, it also put others on notice to continue stepping up their own game because, as Lamar noted in September, “Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date. And I’ll be there to remind the world why.” 

Speaking of breaking records in 2024, Beyoncé lassoed the honor of becoming the first Black woman to claim the No. 1 spot on Top Country Albums with the second act in her Renaissance-led album trilogy, Cowboy Carter. The project also garnered her eighth No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Segueing from Renaissance’s Black cultural dive into disco and house music to dissecting Country music’s Black roots, the Houston native introduced a diverse cast of guests and additional collaborators on Cowboy Carter, from daughter Rumi Carter, Miley Cyrus and Black country pioneer Linda Martell to Shaboozey and Paul McCartney. Upon releasing the album’s first two singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” Beyoncé posted in part on her Instagram account, “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me; act ii is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.” 

Snubbed by this year’s CMA Awards, Beyoncé did win her first country award for top country female artist at the recent 2024 Billboard Music Awards. And after having launched two new ventures, haircare line Cécred, and whisky brand SirDavis, she’ll soon perform live on Netflix during NFL Christmas Gameday. Not to mention achieving another career milestone: Cowboy Carter’s 11 Grammy nominations (including the coveted album of the year), make Beyoncé the most nominated artist of all time with 99 nods. 

The riff on the title of the Eurythmics/Aretha Franklin 1985 classic perfectly captures what a hot year it was for the women of hip-hop — both contemporary and legendary. Musically, Latto, GloRilla and Megan Thee Stallion staked successful top five claims on the Billboard 200 and R&B/hip-hop chart tallies. And in the upcoming Grammy derby, women MCs also made their presence known with nods for Cardi B, GloRilla, Rapsody, Latto and Doechii. 

Doechii’s four nominations include best new artist and best rap album, with the latter marking her as the first woman rapper to appear in that category (with mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal) since Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy in 2020. Women rappers also showed up and showed out on the touring front. Nicki Minaj, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion and Missy Elliott (in her first-ever headlining circuit) all posted strong placements on this year’s Top Tours with the Queens MC making historical leaps and landing the highest-grossing tour ever for a female rapper.  Previously, there had never been more than one woman MC represented in any given year. 

In the wake of his feud with Kendrick Lamar, Drake shocked the industry in late November when his company, Drake’s Frozen Moments LLC, filed a legal petition in New York accusing Universal Music Group (UMG) and Spotify of — as reported by Billboard — “launching an illegal ‘scheme’ involving bots, payola and other methods” to boost Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” Adding to the shock value: both artists are signed to UMG labels: Drake directly through Republic after an earlier tenure on Lil Wayne’s Republic-distributed Young Money imprint; Lamar through his own company pgLang licensed through Interscope after departing the Interscope-distributed TDE imprint. 

A day after the above action was filed on Nov. 25, Drake and his legal team publicly revealed another pre-action filing against “Not Like Us”: this time in Texas and against major radio chain iHeartRadio. In it, the claim is made that UMG potentially “funneled payments” to iHeartRadio as part of a “pay-to-play scheme.” And, as Billboard reported, that “UMG knew that Kendrick’s song ‘falsely’ accused him of being a ‘certified pedophile’ and ‘predator’ but chose to release it anyway.” In an earlier statement given to Billboard, a UMG spokesperson vehemently denied Drake’s allegations.  

After several failed attempts at securing bail, Sean “Diddy” Combs’ will now remain in a Brooklyn jail until his sex trafficking and racketeering trial, which is slated to begin on May 5, 2025. The hip-hop mogul is facing a potential life sentence in the wake of being arrested and indicted in September. The indictment followed federal agent raids on his Los Angeles and Miami homes, the loss of several business partnerships, a damaging hotel video of him physically assaulting his ex, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, and a tsunami of multiple additional sexual abuse lawsuits filed against him. The fast-moving downfall was sparked by the misconduct case brought against him by Cassie on Nov. 16, which Combs settled less than 24 hours after the lawsuit was reported.  In the latest chapter of the Diddy saga, a civil lawsuit was filed against Jay-Z alleging the superstar raped a 13-year-old girl with Combs. Jay-Z has strongly denied the allegations, calling them a “blackmail attempt” filed by a “fraud” lawyer.  

Combs, who helped launch the digital cable network in 2013, resigned his chairman post in November 2023 as his legal issues continued to mount. Offering to step in and acquire the company was relentless Diddy troller 50 Cent. Declaring his intention on X, 50 Cent wrote, ““I’ll buy that from you play boy, [sic] for the low because you know Cadillac and AT&T gonna pull out. I’ll give you a few dollars for it now! Sell it to me, then we can be friends … Im serious call my phone.” 

It was reported in March that Combs had sold his stake to an anonymous buyer. However, rumors about a new owner were quelled in June when CEO Detavio Samuels announced that REVOLT was now an employee-owned entity. Combs sold his stake back to the company, and those shares were then distributed among its current employees. “We came to the conclusion that the only people we needed was us,” Samuels told Billboard of the historic move to ensure that REVOLT remains Black-owned and operated … We’re about to dream bigger, and we’re about to dream Blacker.” 

Rapper Young Thug (Jeffery Lamar Williams) was arrested in May 2022, along with 27 others (including Gunna and other artists on Young Thug’s Young Stoner Life label), under a 56-count indictment for violations of Georgia’s RICO Act. After more than 700 days in jail, the Grammy winner pleaded guilty to possession of drugs and firearms in the YSL RICO case in which he was alleged to be the leader of a violent Atlanta street gang. Sentenced to 15 years’ probation, he was also granted a release from jail on Oct. 31 in what became the longest criminal trial in Georgia’s history.  

Addressing Judge Reese Whitaker, Thug said in part, “I’m sorry. Through these last two years of my life, you are really, truly, honestly, the best thing that has happened to me. You have made everything fair for me and everybody involved on both sides.” The case also brought a key issue to the forefront: banning the use of artists’ lyrics as evidence in criminal trials. A month after Young Thug’s arrest, former Atlantic Records chairman/COO Julie Greenwald and former 300 Entertainment chairman/CEO Kevin Liles established a petition via Change.org, “Protect Black Art.” To date, the petition has 97,088 signatures.

African female artists continued to make strong strides in the U.S. this year. Tyla earned her first Hot 100 top 10 with “Water” and first Grammy in the inaugural best African music performance category. After releasing her self-titled debut album and its deluxe version, she racked up more awards including best Afrobeats, best R&B and best African act at the MTV EMAs. Tems performed at Coachella, released her debut album Born in the Wild, headlined her first international tour by the same name and earned three Grammy nods: best global album, best R&B song (“Burning”) and best African music performance (“Love Me JeJe”). In addition to releasing her sophomore album, Ayra Starr opened tours for Coldplay and Chris Brown and made her U.S. TV debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Meanwhile, Tiwa Savage made her acting debut in and also executive produced the Amazon Prime Video film Water & Garri, while Qing Madi earned a spot on Billboard’s 21 Under 21 list. 

In tandem with these breakthroughs, African artists also pushed back on the catch-all “Afrobeats” genre classification. In her acceptance speeches at the MTV VMAs and MTV EMAs, Tyla cited the need to recognize the diversity coming out of the continent, noting, “African music can be pop music too.” Wizkid renounced being an “Afrobeats artist” on his Instagram months before the release of his sixth album Morayo. The project’s fusion of various sounds like Afropop, R&B and dancehall underscore his genre-bending capabilities as have his collaborations with American artists like Brent Faiyaz and Jazmine Sullivan as well as French artists like Anaïs Cardot and Tiakola. And Tems, in her Billboard Women in Music feature this year, declared her music — which encompasses neo-soul, R&B, reggae, hip-hop and Afrobeats — “doesn’t perfectly fit into one genre.”

Don’t count out hip-hop’s trailblazers just yet. As this year proved, they’ve still got something to say. Among the pioneers fueling the trend were Common & Pete Rock with their first full-length collaboration produced by Rock, The Auditorium, Vol. 1. The pair picked up a Grammy nomination for best rap album as did Eminem for his 12th studio album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce). Co-produced by Dr. Dre, the album features the track “Houdini,” which garnered Eminem a second Grammy nod for best rap performance and topped the Hot 100 upon its release.  

LL Cool J weighed in with THE FORCE. Largely produced by fellow hip-hop icon Q-Tip, LL’s first studio album in 11 years debuted at No. 9 on Top Rap Albums, giving the legend his fifth consecutive top 10 on that tally. The ever-busy Dr. Dre finishes the year with Snoop Dogg’s newly released Missionary album — their first full-length collaboration since the latter’s 1994 debut album Doggystyle. And Will Smith’s new single with Joyner Lucas, “Tantrum,” is the latest entry in Smith’s official return to music that included this summer’s “You Can Make It” featuring Fridayy and the Sunday Service Choir (No. 3 on Billboard’s Gospel chart) and “Work of Art,” a collaboration with Russ featuring Smith’s son Jaden. 

R&B and hip-hop said goodbye to revered members of its music community this year, many of whose shoulders today’s generation stands: musician, arranger, composer, producer, label executive and entrepreneur Quincy Jones; Maze founder/frontman Frankie Beverly; Tito Jackson, original member of the Jackson 5; Duke Fakir, last original member of the Four Tops; The Spinners’ last surviving member Henry Fambrough, soul/gospel singer and Whitney Houston’s mother Cissy Houston; gospel singer Sandra Crouch, R&B singer Angela Bofill; Organized Noise producer Rico Wade; rappers Bo$$, Rich Homie Quan, Fatman Scoop, Saafir and K; DJ Clark Kent; DJ Mister Cee; and Atlanta radio personality Wanda Smith.  

Additional reporting by Carl Lamarre and Heran Mamo