It hasn’t been a great year for hip-hop regarding charts and sales, and Offset isn’t surprised.
“I’m noticing that ‘no content music’ ain’t catching nobody’s ear,” said Offset, 31, when chatting with Ebro Darden for Apple Music, after Darden asked whether the Migos alum was noticing a “transition in the game” when it came to hip-hop. “I’m noticing that the numbers are down in our genre, specifically, because I feel like everything is so the same. The next new s—t was another n— that was just here. There’s nothing new being brought to the game.”
“Not just on the sound side but just all the way around. Creatively, too,” he continued. “Most videos be, like, a Rolls Royce in the background, two chains on. That s–t [is] getting boring, fellas. There’s no real entertainment. You got these pop and these country artists smoking s—t because they coming with the full round, the full package. … Everything ain’t flexin’.”
Offset’s concerns are warranted. Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape became the first hip-hop album of 2023 to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and it did so in July. In the months before that, R&B (SZA’s SOS), pop (Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito, Stray Kids’ 5-Star, Taylor Swift’s Midnights) and country (Morgan Wallen‘s One Thing at a Time) occupied the top spot.
Since then, Drake (For All The Dogs), Travis Scott (Utopia) and Rod Wave (Nostalgia) have shown that hip-hop can move units, with each taking the No. 1 spot for a week or two.
The same can be seen on the Billboard Hot 100, where pop and country dominated for the first three-quarters of 2023. Doja Cat’s “Paint The Town Red” was the first rap no. 1 in over a year, ending a drought after Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” reached No. 1 in August 2022, per Billboard. Since then, Drake’s “First Person Shooter” and “Slime You Out” have been the only other hip-hop/rap-adjacent songs to go to No. 1.
Rolling Stone reported in July that only three hip-hop albums released in 2023 up to that point – Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains, Lil Durk’s Almost Healed and NF’s Hope – were in the top 25 most-consumed hip-hop albums of the year. In 2018, 13 rap albums released that year were in the genre’s top 25. Rolling Stone credits the decline to the lack of music from major stars like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and more.
The publication also put forth a subjective theory similar to Offset’s, in that tastes are changing and fans aren’t buying what’s being sold.
Offset released Set It Off, his second solo album, on October 13. The project debuted at No. 5 behind Zach Bryan’s self-titled album, TOMORROW x TOMORROW’s new LP, Drake’s For All The Dogs, and Bad Bunny’s Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va A Pasar Manana.
