As the year comes to an end, we are wading deep into list season. Now that we’ve talked about the best albums, songs, debuts, and EPs of 2025, it’s time to get even more granular and pay tribute to a few genres before the holiday. Today, we’ve assembled a comprehensive list of our favorite rap albums released in the last 12 months. That includes another banner year for Backwoodz Studioz, a career-best effort from Earl Sweatshirt, two instant rage classics, and releases from always dependable names, like Aesop Rock, Little Simz, clipping., and more. This year also saw the return of two all-time great groups: De La Soul and Clipse. Being a hip-hop fan is pretty fun right now. Here is Paste’s official ranking of the best rap albums of 2025.
When Aesop Rock is acting sardonic, he’s at his best. On “Unbelievable Shenanigans,” the final song on Black Hole Superette, he telegraphs his flow in conversational poetry. “People be like, ‘Wow, you’re such a hypocrite.’ And I’m like, ‘Yo, you can’t be this completely fuckin’ stupid. I hope you suffer horribly. Like, I’m not even a violent person, which makes me a double hypocrite.'” Rock excavates the selectiveness of memory (“It’s interesting what the memory cherry picks and what it pardons”) and reckons with trauma’s place in transformation (“We’re nothing if not silver linings stuffed into compartments”). He dissects the inner-workings of his own complications, rapping non-chalantly over choppy rhythm samples, clipped symphonies, and psychedelic vocal pieces. Hanni El Khatib closes the song — and album — with my favorite image of the year: “Memory, waiting on the edge of the sun, burning in the shape that I’ve become.” Black Hole Superette, with appearances from Open Mike Eagle (“So Be It”), Armand Hammer (“1010 Wins”), and Lupe Fiasco (“Charlie Horse”), elevates Aesop Rock even further into the rap pantheon. The dude kills it on his own. But when his friends step up to the mic, you’re always witnessing lyrical contrasts anchor into excellence. No tours, no interviews, nothing. Rock lays it down on his own terms. — Matt Mitchell [Rhymesayers]
