The Top 10 Rappers From the First Half of 2017

Jax Egan
Jax Egan
Jul 21, 2017 · 12 min read

The first six and a half months of 2017 have brought us some really great rap music.

Migos kicked off the year by releasing Culture, riding off the success of Bad and Boujee — which was everywhere for like, a month straight. In March, Drake released the long awaited More Life, a fun list of songs that doesn’t get stale one bit despite being 22 tracks deep. In April, Kendrick Lamar dropped DAMN, an album that somehow lived up to the hype despite the insane expectations that had been placed on it. This summer has been littered with great albums such as Big Fish Theory, Flower Boy, 4:44 and Beautiful Thugger Girls. Not to mention a few fun singles have been dropped here and there like RAF and Biking.

When making this list I took three things into consideration when judging the artist (in order from most to least important): 1. output 2. quality 3. appeal.

Output is most important to me because this is only over the course of six months. If a rapper can release a ton of really good songs in a short period of time, I respect that more than the rapper who can release two great songs in the same period.

Next is quality. This is my list and I have to think the music is high quality. If you don’t like it then go make your own.

Third is appeal. I still looked at charts to see what was popping obviously and just knowing who everyone is talking about on Twitter, but I valued my own personal opinion more. If appeal was the only thing going into this list, Lil Pump would be top three even though he can’t seem to make a song longer than two minutes. (Quality).

Basically, imagine the world started on January 1st, 2017. These would be the top 10 rappers ever. With all that being said, lets get started.

Honorable Mentions

These dudes just missed the cut:

21 Savage- ISSA left alot to be desired, but was still a fun, well produced album. If he released more music in the first five months of 2017, he might have a spot.

Amine- I have a feeling this dude is going to blow up in the second half of the year. He was probably the most impressive coming out of the XXL Freshmen stuff, and REDMERCEDES and Wedding Crashers are both very fun songs. If he got started maybe a little earlier he could have slipped in.

Playboi Carti- He didn’t really show up for XXL Freshmen. I mean for real, it was kind of embarrassing. He had some good songs on the album though, like Magnolia and New Choppa. I just don’t think he’s talented enough.

JOEY BADA$$- Maaannnnn this one I legit feel bad about. I really wanted to slip Joey in there, I just couldn’t find room. ALL-AMERICAN BADA$$ was a pretty good album, except it had a J. Cole feature, which knocked it down from really good to just pretty good. Joey also had a few good features himself over the past few months. Joey is for sure my 11th man.

NOTE: Frank Ocean isn’t on this list because I consider him more of a singer. If I were to include him he would for sure be top five. The dude has been on fire.

10. Travis Scott

Travis Scott is the modern day T.I.

Except better.

Travis definitely found his niche on Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight and has rode the success of that album into 2017. He sounds catchy as hell on features like Portland and Love Galore, and collaborated with other catchy rappers on Go Off (Quavo, Lil Uzi Vert)

Travis has been on seemingly every major album release this year, and has made his stamp on every single one. He has one of the most recognizable voices in rap and is well on his way to finish the year on a hot streak. He uses autotune better than anyone in the last few years not named Kanye West or T.I., and he’s already a better rapper than T.I.

9. A$AP Rocky

Everything Rocky has touched this year has turned to gold.

With the exception of Cozy Tapes, Rocky was quiet in 2016. Many expected a big 2017 from him — as he is due for an album this year, and he has not disappointed. RAF is my favorite song of the year so far, it packs features from Quavo, Frank Ocean, and Uzi into a beautifully composed 3:35 track. (Don’t forget adlibs from Carti) He hasn’t missed on a feature yet himself. He dropped hot bars on New Choppa, Gilligan and Who Dat Boy. Then he tapped into his softer side on two Lana del Rey tracks.

What we are seeing now is peak Rocky. Even though he hasn’t been incredibly active this year, the quality of his music has been outstanding. He’s showing the same versatility and confidence that we saw on LONG.LIVE.A$AP and AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP (Listen to enough 2013–2015 Rocky and you will feel like you can fuck Rihanna) and this year he’s quickened his flow a noticeable amount, showing his versatility even more so. Forgive me if the Rocky stan in me is showing, but he has released some of the best music that has come out so far this year. I fully expect an album from him at some point in the next six months, and I fully expect it to be flames.

8. Young Thug

I’m gonna be honest, when I first listened to Young Thug, I didn’t think he had any career ahead of him.

When Lifestyle blew up in 2014, it was easy to make fun of. No one knew who Young Thug was, so it wasn’t hard to join in on the meme and say ‘What’s this dude even saying?’ and skip to the next song.

But you couldn’t help but go back and listen to it just one more time, because Lifestyle was mesmerizing. The way Young Thug raps on it was totally new and unforeseen.

Young Thug wasn’t bad, he was transcendent. He has lead this new wave of ‘mumble rappers’, particularly ones from Atlanta, into the mainstream.

As far as this year goes, Thugger is in the same boat that Travis Scott is. He’s everywhere. He got Drake’s blessing early in his career, and has taken advantage of it, collaborating with him on More Life twice. (Ice Melts and Sacrifices, two of the best songs on the album.) His own joint, Beautiful Thugger Girls, is his best work yet; it mixes pop and hip-hop in only a way that Young Thug can, and he collaborates with fellow Atlanta rappers Quavo and Future flawlessly. He appeared on Calvin Harris, Tyga, DJ Khaled, Drake, and French Montana’s albums, further making a name for himself as one of the hottest rappers right now.

Many people have been wondering who is next in line for the throne after Kendrick and Drake move on. Maybe it’s Young Thug.

7. Vince Staples

This should be pretty short. Big Fish Theory was spectacular. That is all.

No but really, I could go on and on about how much I love Big Fish Theory. I hadn’t really listened to very much Vince before the album hype, but I’m really glad I started. Big Fish Theory is probably the third or fourth best album so far this year (DAMN, 4:44, BFT and Flower Boy) and for that reason alone he deserves this spot in the top 10. His ability to reinvent his sound from one song to the next on BFT is extremely impressive on its own.

I think this album bumped Vince up a tier. Before (this is all in my opinion) he was in the third tier of rappers, with guys like Earl Sweatshirt, Vic Mensa, A$AP Ferg, etc. This album moved him up to second tier, right below the elites. Now he sits with other guys at that level like Thugger, ScHoolboy Q, and Travis Scott. And it’s all thanks to this album.

And well, maybe this tweet too:

(I guess it doesn’t really make sense because that dummy deleted his tweet but you can probably find what he said if you look enough. I just really wanted to include that tweet in my Vince section.)

6. Future

You guys, Future released two very good albums in the first six months of the year. Not one, two. His output is insane.

The first one, simply titled Future, is a fun album that has more pop music vibes than we are used to from him. Also, it gave us Mask Off, which is definitely the best song Future has ever made.

His subsequent release, HNDRXX, is simply incredible. It holds its own against any Rap/R&B this year. He collabs with Rihanna on Selfish, and the album is littered with other catchy tunes like Incredible and Comin Out Strong.

These two albums paired with his usual deep array of features and remixes means Future has more than earned his spot in the top 10.

5. Jay-Z

Okay, I couldn’t just not include Hov. He’s more than earned it. Especially after 4:44.

I’ll just let Shea Serrano explain this one:

Basically, the fact that Jay was able to reinvent his sound AGAIN after a bajillion albums before and at 47 YEARS OLD is extremely impressive. Not only that, but he backpacked that shit. He got 4 features on a 10 track album and the rest was Jay’s old ass. This is the album of the year front-runner, folks.

4. Migos

I’m so surprised by how great of a year Migos has had.

I remember listening to Migos in 2013–2015, before they were really mainstream. And I loved their music, but for some reason I never saw them blowing up and having the wide appeal that they have now. They’ve found their niche, and they’ve improved so much. Listen to old Migos tapes. Like YRN and before that. And listen to Quavo’s flow. Then listen to Quavo now. He has truly taken himself to the next level. Whether or not he’s going to take Takeoff and Offset with him…well, we’ll have to see.

Migos absolutely dominated the first three months of the year. They took the momentum gained off of Bad and Boujee and then released Culture in January. Culture has Bad and Boujee on the tracklist along with other bops like T-Shirt, Slippery and Brown Paper Bag.

As previously implied, Quavo has been featured on like, everything that has come out this year. Recently Offset and Takeoff have gotten their chance as well.

There are already rumors of Culture II coming sooner than expected. If it drops in this calendar year, we might as well name 2017 the year of the Migo.

3. Tyler, the Creator

This is kinda sorta cheating, because Flower Boy didn’t come out until the second half of 2017, but for the sake of this article we’re going to use July 21st, 2017 as the halfway point of 2017. Not only because of Tyler, but because of all the other music that dropped on July 21st.

Tyler finally came out of his music coma in April, dropping a spectacular verse on Frank Ocean’s Biking. This was followed up by a mysterious week-long countdown on his recently re-activated Twitter account, leading to the release of Who Dat Boy — a banger if there ever was one, and 911/Mr. Lonely. Which is basically the modern day Kiss Me Thru the Phone.

These two songs demonstrated the two sides of Tyler, occasionally described as ‘Raping Bitches Tyler’ and ‘Lakes and Rainbows Tyler.’

After staying quiet for a couple weeks, Tyler announced his new album Flower Boy. Other than an early leak, the lead up to the album was perfect. Tyler dropped two more singles, Boredom and I Ain’t Got Time! Both of which were spectacular songs by all accounts.

Flower Boy is absolutely peak Tyler. The way his music has matured since his OFWGKTA days is impressive af. Also, did I mention the entire album is written and produced entirely by Tyler? No one else in hip hop is doing that. Not even Kanye. The way Tyler has gone from the rambunctious kid he was before Wolf to the mature, mellow producer that he is now is so awesome to watch.

It feels like this album is everything he has been working towards in his career, (But he’s only 26) you can really tell he put everything into this. The voices, the chord progressions, the mixing. It’s deep, introspective, and gorgeous.

This is my choice for album of the year.

2. Drake

Drake is the people’s champion.

He’s smart. He’s on your TV. He’s good looking and charismatic and his appeal is so, so, SO wide. Think about it, pretty much everyone listens to Drake: The kids in the inner city listen to Drake, the boys at Alpha Sigma Phi listen to Drake, your mom listens to Drake, and you probably listen to Drake too.

Basically, there are three types of Drake:

  1. Banger Drake: (Example: Free Smoke)This is my favorite Drake. I wish he had more songs where he just goes in on a hard af beat. Instead he wants to get all emotional. Smh.
  2. Emotional Drake: (Example: Marvin’s Room)This is a good Drake when you’re in the right mood. But only if you’re in the right mood. Don’t listen to emotional Drake when you’re trying to get hyped. Your body won’t be able to handle the clash of feelings and you’ll probably die.
  3. Groovy Drake (Example: Passionfruit) This is the Drake we saw the most of on More Life. It’s the perfect median between Banger and Emotional. It has the vibes of Emotional Drake but the lyrics of Banger Drake.

More Life was supposed to drop last December, but for whatever reason that never happened. It dropped on March 18th, and it was well worth the wait. 22 songs and almost an hour and a half of music. Drizzy got features from Young Thug, Kanye West, Travis Scott, Quavo, Sampha, and some guy named Giggs.

I was really looking forward to More Life, not only because it dropped on my birthday, but because Views was such a disappointment. With the exception of a few good moments, Views felt stale. It didn’t have any songs you wanted to go back and listen to over and over again, and I think Drake knew that. Which is why he tried to pump out another album so fast.

On the subject of that, Drake pumps out high quality music faster than any mainstream rapper not named Future. It’s honestly extremely impressive. He uses his wide array of talents on various different songs and crosses over into both pop and R&B equally.

But as great as Drake is, he just isn’t the greatest rapper alive…

1. Kendrick Lamar

Was there ever any doubt?

Kendrick Lamar has a perfect discography. He has never made anything that was bad. Every song he has released has been either alright, good, great, or Alright.

After the critically acclaimed To Pimp A Butterfly came out in 2015, Kendrick had stupid high expectations for his next album. Almost unattainable expectations. A lot of people think TPAB is the greatest rap album of all time.

And he met those expectations with DAMN.

Kendrick’s ability to constantly reinvent his sound is honestly mind-blowing at this point. DAMN had a radio hit in HUMBLE, (possibly the song of the year) the second biggest banger of his career in DNA, (M.a.a.d city is first) some chill songs like YAH and LOVE, and a great closer in DUCKWORTH, which didn’t get enough attention honestly.

He also hit on features this year like Doves In The Wind and Yeah Right.

Kendrick is the LeBron James of rap. He’s unfuckwithable. He’s the most talented and complete rapper in the game right now and no one can really deny it.

He is the King.

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