Kendrick Lamar, performing in Los Angeles in June, was among the most important and inescapable voices in any genre of music in 2024.

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Timothy Norris/Getty Images

Kendrick Lamar, performing in Los Angeles in June, was among the most important and inescapable voices in any genre of music in 2024.

Timothy Norris/Getty Images

Record-breaking mainstream hits. A new generation of artists rising to seize their moment. Rappers in and out of courts. A pair of the biggest names in the game transforming their careers by taking their rivalry to sometimes bitter new heights. In 2024, hip-hop brought us wave upon wave of massive, surprising, culture-shifting moments.

NPR Music’s Sheldon Pearce, Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael were watching and listening all year long, and they’ve gathered together to explain the most important stories of hip-hop’s 51st year. There was the ascendance of new dominant voices in Southern rap, many of them female, along with the noticeable resonance, for many artists in the genre, with country music. The disconcerting trial of Young Thug left a void in Atlanta — the longtime hip-hop capital — for much of the year, before it ended suddenly and dramatically. And yes, there was the remarkable show put on by Kendrick Lamar in his sustained attack on Drake.

Plus: Rodney, Sidney and Sheldon share their favorite hip-hop albums of the year. Hip-hop may have celebrated its landmark 50th anniversary in 2023 by looking back at its own history, but in 2024, it shot forward like a cannon blast.