The calendar has turned to the fourth quarter and hip-hop is working overtime before the buzzer rings in 2024. With Rod Wave and GloRilla making their presence felt in the top five of the Billboard 200 alongside work from Tyler, The Creator and Lil Uzi Vert, it's a busy time in the rap world.
Billboard No filtering returns with a new episode that breaks down all the chart drama related to hip-hop and R&B along with many other topics. It's a packed house with all four friends in the mix on Friday (October 25).
“It's been an interesting year for female rappers. You didn't know what he was going to do,” said Associate Director, Editorial Damien Scott. “He could have made 10,000 or he did what he did.”
Glo earned the top debut sales week of any female rapper in all of 2024 with 69,000 total album units. GLORIOUS at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
“I don't know if people necessarily saw this coming,” said Senior Charts & Data Analyst Trevor Anderson. “We knew the buzz was really strong, but that doesn't always translate into full support… Let's see what she did with almost 70,000 shows for the week. A year ago, people were like, 'Oh, it's a wrap.'”
He continued: “Glo seems to have a huge runway to play on. Especially when it's kind of surprising we had so many people fall in the same year… For Glo to come [quarter] four and close this conversation, I don't know if many people would have it at the top of the year on the bingo card.”
Associate R&B/Hip-Hop manager Carl Lamarre took the opportunity to defend himself after backlash for viral 'big three' options on social media. In a previous episode, Lamarre went with Rod Wave, Travis Scott, and Playboi Carti to complete his new “big three.”
“Am I statistically wrong? [Rod Wave’s] had seven top 10s in the last five years. Brother is currently on an arena tour for the third year in a row,” he said. “How many cats tour the arena back to back to back. But they don't hear that he's a rapper. What is rap today?'
The 2024 BET Hip Hop Awards went down last week, and Staff Writer Kyle Denis questions the purpose of the Hip Hop Awards having so much overlap with the BET Awards.
“I think what confuses some viewers about the purpose of the Hip Hop Awards is how central the main BET awards are to hip-hop,” he said. “Why do we have to come back four or five months later for another hip-hop show… It's like the same show twice.”
Last week, the president of Russ and Top Dawg Entertainment Terrence “Punch” Henderson went viral with their critiques of hip-hop journalism, leading to many heated discussions on social media about the state of the industry.
“Is it in a bad place? It's not in the best place,” Scott said of journalism. “It's not as good as it was 20 years ago, but it's not all doom and gloom. I'll say it's not that bad.”
Dennis hit back at Punch calling “most” hip-hop journalists “trash”. “You can't go into the space and talk about how most of you are trash and expect people to engage with you in good faith,” he said. “All the hip-hop journalists I've met and met have been some of the smartest people I've ever talked to. I would never call them trash.”
Watch the full episode above.
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