Rap music just vanished from the Billboard Top 40 for the first time in 35 years

Billboard/Yahoo! ^ | Oct 30, 2025 | Aidin Vaziri

[CondoleezzaProtege]

For the first time in more than three decades, not a single rap song ranks among the 40 most popular tracks in America.

Last week's Billboard Hot 100 marked the end of a remarkable 35-year streak, after Kendrick Lamar and SZA's "Luther" - a 13-week No. 1 hit - dropped off the chart. With that departure, the genre that once dominated the nation's listening habits found itself completely absent from the chart's upper tier.

Not since February 1990 has the Billboard Hot 100 gone without a rap entry in its upper ranks.

The gap has been widened by Taylor Swift's "The Life of a Showgirl," which has kept all 12 of its songs in the top 40 for three weeks.

Beyond technicalities, the lull points to a deeper shift. Hip-hop's market share - once nearly 30% in 2020 - has slipped to 24% this year. Two years ago, eight rap songs sat in the top 40, while just five years ago, there were 16.

Meanwhile, pop and country acts have borrowed from hip-hop's rhythms and swagger - sometimes blurring the boundaries so completely that the sound persists even when the artists themselves aren't rappers

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TOPICS: Music/Entertainment
KEYWORDS: billboard; criminalcabal; dindunuffin; dustbinofhistory; gangsta; hiphop; hollywood; music; musicindustry; notmusic; oyvey; rap; whoownstheindustry

[blackdog]

GFR

[Vision]

Well that was an embarrassing period in human history.

[Red Badger]

Let’s hope that people are tired of it.

It lasted longer than I expected.

Even Disco was better................

[mairdie]

Thank goodness!

[cross_bearer_02]

And nothing of value was lost or left wanting.

[Varsity Flight]

It’s s-not 🎶,

It’s c-rap ✖️🪨

[AFB-XYZ]

How can there be a “rap song” when rap isn’t music, and its performers don’t sing?

[ealgeone]

Agree. I thought yang yang music as I called it would last about 3-5 years and be done. Welp...I was wrong.

It has to be the lowest form of music we've ever had.

[smokingfrog]

Thank you, Lord!

[Red Badger]

As one early rapper once said, “The reason we rap is because we can’t sing!”..................

[albie]

Thank God

[Red Badger]

I think the first ‘rap song’ was Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue”........................

[ChildOfThe60s]

John Nitzinger - RAP IS CRAP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaUHA88DuFE

[JennysCool]

When you look at Billboard Top 40 charts from the '60s through the '80s, there was room for just about every genre of music -- rock, soul, country, easy listening, even instrumentals and novelty records, all coexisting on one chart. The prevalence of rap over the past quarter-century or so has pushed a LOT of worthy music in other genres below that all-important Top 40 threshold.

[sit-rep]

hopefully the “Blacks are Cool” fad dies completely...

[Noumenon]

That's a shame. Who could forget such an epic and uplifting hit like "Smack my Bitch Up"?

Change my pitch up, smack my bitch up
Change my pitch up, smack my bitch up
Change my pitch up, smack my bitch up
Change my pitch up, smack my bitch up
Smack my bitch up
Smack my bitch up
Change my pitch up, smack my bitch up

[Deaf Smith]

>>GFR

Grand Funk Railroad?

[blackdog]

Good Fu#$ing Riddance.

[aquila48]

About time! Hopefully that gut rot will disappear for good.