AnywhereTheDopeGo Best Albums of 2025 – Demetrios

While I don’t write nearly enough anymore, what music nerd can ever resist sharing their album of the year list? December drags hip-hop heads out from under the rock of real life responsibilities to the warm embrace of four-week-early engagement bait and RYM level slop.

2025 has had a couple of noticeable patterns emerge in rap, at least as seen in my listening habits. It’s largely an underground movement, but we’ve seen an influx of pissed off political music in response to the current state of the US – a pattern many expected to begin in 2016, but I guess things are just that much more dire today.

Traditional Atlanta and Memphis trap maintain their radio status and you can still count on them for a few strong releases each year, but their 2021 renaissance seems to have slowed down with the declines of 1017 and CMG. The niche has largely been replaced by even younger artists with zoomer appeal and more daring sounds in the plugg and rage scenes.

You also had big releases from the likes of Clipse, JID, Tyler, and all of the usual internet darlings that were good enough to silence the “hip-hop is dead” crowd, as well as Mass Appeal’s Legend Has It series which gave us something to look forward to every month; so whether the charts reflect it or not, there is always something fresh for fans who care any more than the bare minimum.

So out of the 800+ new albums I checked in 2025, here’s my top 50 or so. My only regret is they couldn’t all get the full review and writeup they deserve.

Honorable Mentions

10. Ty Farris & Apollo Brown – Run Toward the Monster

Apollo Brown has had some ups and downs since departing Mello Music Group; not necessarily that his production has taken a dip in quality, but the MC’s he’s collaborated with aren’t particularly interesting to me. So what better way to find your footing again than to link with fellow Detroiter Ty Farris for a long overdue project? Similarly to Crimeapple with 2024’s This, Is Not That, Apollo brings a more mature, meditative tone out of T-Flame rather than the constant wordplay and street raps. It’s a very motivational album, encouraging you to embrace discomfort, whether it be loss, the grind, or simple mental health in order to better yourself.

Now that that’s out of the way, Elzhi is the last frontier for Apollo to tackle. Fingers crossed for 2026.

Listen on Bandcamp

9. Danny Brown – Stardust

If you told me in January that my album of the year list included 2hollis, Jane Remover, and a hyperpop Danny Brown album, the dusty oldhead in me would’ve cried out in shame. But here we are.

While I’ve grown to like some of the catchier hyperpop artists, Danny brings a different level of rapping ability that elevates the genre in its entirety. That’s probably disrespecful, but again, I’m only a casual fan of the genre. Danny is clearly a fan himself given how hard he leaned into it here and the entire production / feature list. Most importantly, he takes an interesting angle across the whole album, exploring his place in hip-hop and his struggles as a minor celebrity. This is the balance of maturity, passion, and experimentation we wanted for so long after Atrocity Exhibition.

Listen on Bandcamp

8. Glokk40Spaz – Baby Whoa 2

While it’s not the first great Glokk40Spaz album, Baby Whoa 2 comes at just the right time. There’s a void in Atlanta where traditional trap isn’t moving units like it used to, and other young artists are either unmotivated or untalented. Star power or not, Glokk seems to have solidified himself as the best in the scene. Read my full review here.

Listen on Spotify

7. billy woods – Golliwog

I probably take billy woods for granted at this point. At one point in the late 10s he was my favorite artist, but then he got popular and I wanted to be contrarian so I barely rated his newer releases, despite them being amazing as other. Golliwog, however, is undeniable, and too perfectly engineered to my own taste.

billy is one of those artists that tackles similar subjects on each album, but with a whole different aesthetic and lens (for example, touring on Maps, weed on Church, colonialism on Aethiopes, etc.). The discomforting Southern Gothic horror approach on Golliwog, alongside a who’s who of backpack producers and features (Despot included!), place it among his best – a damn high bar, because while other artists might have similar rates of output, nobody is reinventing their content on such dense, thematic projects every year. Be sure to check out August Fanon’s full-length remix as well!

Listen on Bandcamp

6. FearDorian – Leaving Home

FearDorian is one of those rappers who captures a rare niche that I really like. He evokes a 2000’s teen movie, capturing all the carefree fun partying or simple time with friends, paired with an angst for the future – setting out on your own, moving on from your first life (that of a child), and all of the uncertainty, loneliness, and confusion that comes with it.

2024’s A Dog’s Chance, a collab with Polo Perks <3 <3 <3 and AyoLii, featured on my last album of the year list, mostly captures the fun parts, whereas Leaving Home pairs with it as the uneasy, introspective half. Dorian’s production and flows are so forward thinking and energetic, very impressive for someone as new to music as he is. He makes me feel just as young.

Listen on Spotify

5. Gabe ‘Nandez & Preservation – Sortilège

Gabe Nandez is someone I’ve had my eye on for awhile now given his place in the New York underground, but most of his projects felt like teasers. Who better to bring out a fully fleshed, longer, but focused album full of relevant features than Backwoodz Studios and DJ Preservation? Backwoodz continues its streak of strong releases serving as one of the last, truest conduits for the culture, and Preservation is one of the most prestigious names in the same lane.

Together, Nandez and Preservation explore hip-hop across time and geography on Sortilege; Gabe’s lyricism and tone are wise and wordly, but still grounded in the reality of class struggle. This is the album that has, in my mind, elevated him to a new, upper tier of indie rap.

Listen on Bandcamp

4. Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals – A City Drowned in God’s Black Tears

This is exactly what hip-hop needs to be bringing to our social climate right now. I don’t remember the last time I heard such direct, pissed off, revolutionary lyrics that directly points fingers and names names, all framed by Infinity Knives’ genre-crossing production and rollercoaster sequencing – whiplashing between industrial tracks slamming Netanyahu, to interludes entirely in jazz and Afro beats. A City Drowned in God’s Black Tears says more for the needs of the average American than any politician, hopefully inspiring us all to get educated and speak out.

Listen on Bandcamp

3. Thirteendegrees ° – Clique City vol. 2

There’s a small, exciting scene bubbling in Chicago that harkens back to the city’s early 10’s club era, and Thirteendegrees is its obvious breakout star (alongside Lil2posh, primarily). Clique City vol. 2 oozes personality that young millennials will be drawn too, referencing everything from Graduation to Tumblr, all over such bombastic party beats that would be perfect to bounce to on the dance floor. It’s rarely about anything too threatening or inaccessible – it’s just a good ass time. While Thirteendegrees’ second release of the year Black Fridayz is at least on par with this, with singles that are all among his best work, Clique City should serve as Chicago’s new mission statement.

Listen on Spotify

2. Ghais Guevara – The Other 2/5ths, or: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Trench Baby

First of all: what an awesome title.

It wasn’t easy to pick between this and its 2025 companion piece, Goyard Ibn Said; while it was impressive to see Ghais dialed into a concept so strongly on the latter, The Other 2/5ths plays even greater into his strengths. Here, the production is far more sample heavy, uptempo, and in your face, fitting his complex character of an educated militant informed by real-life experience among the good and bad of the trenches. Conscious versus drill, rich versus poor, smart versus street: nothing is black and white to Ghais except for right versus wrong on a societal level.

Ghais has a solid case for MVP of 2025 between these two complimentary album of the year contenders, as well as some loose EP’s; he has certainly fulfilled expectations since dropping There Will Be No Super-Slave.

Listen on Bandcamp

1. Lukah & Statik Selektah – A Lost Language Found

Statik Selektah’s strongest collaboration in many years sees Memphis MC Lukah spend over an hour breaking down both the science and art of African American English. If I’ve ever had a complaint about Lukah, one of my favorite rappers of the 2020’s so far, it’s that he often chooses more boom-bappy East Coast production than the Southern sound that suits his voice and subject matter so well; but on A Lost Language Found he manages to draw a country flavor out of Statik Selektah. Between skits and storytelling, Lukah colors Black speech as its own distinct, respectable vernacular, rich in rules, structure, and history, with its greatest expression being hip-hop.

A Lost Language Found is a love letter to the South and to its voice: a truly unique, important concept to cover, that you might expect from an even headier artist. But In 2025, the South still has something to say.

Listen on Bandcamp

More reviews

Subscribe to our official YouTube channel