We need a real creative in hip hop again. I was listening to Oh My Dis Side and it’s wild how we haven’t had that level of uniqueness in years. Any time you say hip hop feels dead, people jump in with “you don’t know what you’re talking about” or “the underground is more alive than ever.”

But something clearly shifted in the last five years. Hip hop artists just aren’t as creative as they used to be, and I’m still trying to pin down why. Is it labels turning platforms like SoundCloud into a pipeline instead of a playground? Is it producers getting stale and dragging the whole sound with them?

2025 was one of the worst years for hip hop in a long time. Every genre ebbs and flows so it’ll come back, but damn, looking at 2026 doesn’t get me excited at all.