With Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s 13-week Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Luther” falling off the Hot 100 dated Oct. 25, 2025, there were officially no rap songs in the chart’s top 40 last week.
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The highest-ranking rap song — defined as a song deemed eligible for charting on Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs listing — on the Oct. 25 Hot 100 was YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s “Shot Callin,” at No. 44. Cardi B’s “Safe” (featuring Kehlani) and BigXthaPlug’s “Hell at Night” (featuring Ella Langley) also ranked in the 40s, at Nos. 48 and 49, respectively.
The last time before that when there were zero rap songs in the top 40 of the Hot 100? You have to go back all the way back to Feb. 2, 1990, when the top-ranking rap song was Biz Markie’s eventual top 10 hit “Just a Friend,” which had just climbed to No. 41 on the chart. The next week, “Just a Friend” jumped to 29, starting a Hot 100 streak of rap songs in the top 40 that would last for the next 35 years, eight months and three weeks.
Recent rule changes to Billboard’s Hot 100 methodology did play a part in the streak coming to an end. For the chart dated Oct. 25, descending songs were deemed recurrent and removed from the chart if they had exceeded certain durations on the chart while also falling below certain updated chart thresholds — for instance, if they had fallen below No. 25 after spending over 26 weeks on the chart. That particular change resulted in the departure of “Luther,” which had fallen to No. 38 on the previous week’s Hot 100 in its 46th week on the listing.
However, with “Luther” and seven other songs in the Hot 100’s top 40 going recurrent on the Oct. 25 chart following the rule change, there was also extra opportunity for songs below them on the chart to rebound into the top 40, or to reach it for the first time. No rap songs were close enough to the threshold to be able to make that jump. (Also in the way: all 12 songs from Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, have been lodged in the top 40 the past three weeks, further limiting room for rap hits in the region.)
The lack of rap songs in the Hot 100’s top 40 is the latest sign of a recent dip in rap’s commercial dominance. Hip-hop’s overall market share reached a peak in 2020, when it neared 30%. That had slipped to just over 25% in 2023, and has been at 24% so far in 2025, through the week of Oct. 23. In the Hot 100 chart for the equivalent chart week five years ago (dated Oct. 24, 2020), a whopping 16 of the top 40 were rap songs, while in the equivalent chart two years ago (Oct. 28, 2023) there were eight rap songs in the top 40.
It is worth noting that the rap world is currently in a bit of an in-between moment with some of its biggest names. Drake, the biggest chart mainstay of the past 15 years (and the artist with the most Hot 100 hits of all time), has not yet released his much-anticipated Iceman album, while his 2024 foe Lamar is finally somewhat dormant following an 18-month period of cultural and commercial domination. However, the last few months have not been totally without big rap releases: both Cardi B and BigXthaPlug (two of the rappers currently closest to the top 40) have released new albums since August, and even without a new album, Drake has released a steady stream of new singles since announcing the album in July.
“Luther” is also the most recent rap song to appear in the Hot 100’s top 10, last doing so on the chart dated Aug. 2, when it ranked at No. 9, before falling to No. 12 the next week. In the two months and three weeks following that chart, the closest another rap song got to the Hot 100’s top 10 was BigXthaPlug’s “All the Way” (featuring Bailey Zimmerman), which ranked at No. 22 for the Hot 100 dated Sept. 6, after peaking at No. 4 in April.
On this week’s Hot 100 (dated Nov. 1, 2025), the rap song-less streak is extended to a second week, as once again no rap songs rate in the chart’s top 40. However, “Shot Callin” does get one spot closer to ending the drought by breaking into the region, climbing No. 44-43 this week.
Additional reporting by Dan Rys.
