“Arguing” is… arguably the sixth pillar of hip-hop.
The game has changed, but our need to fight about it constantly remains intact. From “Who has the loudest soundsystem?” to “Who sounds the best over pluggnb beats rn,” if you put four rap fans in a room, you’ll inevitably hear multiple heated opinions flying. The discourse is part of the fun. We used to argue in parks; now we argue on the internet.
But the internet has drained much of what was once fun out of rap debates. Fighting about rap on the internet was once glorious; we briefly found community and met a whole new population of likeminded nerds who had similar but differing opinions they were ready to go to war over (while still ending up friends at the end).
Social media—especially the darker strain that took hold in the mid-2010s—has warped and perverted that practice. Post a hot take on X, Threads, or TikTok, and you’ll face trolls twisting your words, hijacking conversations, and dragging debates into toxic territory.
I’m not alone in feeling this loss. So we assembled a group of writers who came together to list the 15 most common rap debates that recur online in 2025. You’ll find strawmen, ad hominem attacks, politics where they don’t have any place, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and all sorts of bad faith tactics that make you want to log off and touch grass if you weren’t hopelessly addicted to your phone.
1.So-and-so new rapper is an “Industry Plant"
Recent examples: The rise of 4Batz; The commercial embrace of Doechii
Some skepticism is important when consuming anything. It shows you’re alert and not just passively letting art and discourse wash over you without an ounce of critical thinking. But the rampant “industry plant” accusations that spew from rap fans has to stop.
As Vox reported, the label has been attributed to everyone from 50 Cent and Lil Wayne to more recently the likes of 4Batz and Doechii. It’s beginning to feel like that scene from The Big Lebowski where Walter tells Donny that he’s out of his element, like “a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know.”
The majority of rap fans are late to the scene when a new artist seemingly pops out of nowhere. Their intersection with the artist’s journey is likely just a pinpoint in the full story, glossing over the preludes and exposition where they dropped mixtapes with minimal fanfare and performed in sparse dive bars with the ease of pressing “Skip Recap” on a TV remote. Wanton “industry plant” accusations are also symptomatic of, on one hand, everything is a conspiracy Reddit pilled bullshit, and on the other, not realizing how industry decision makers have mutated the artistic journey, where ascensions are microwaved to fit the attention economy. It’s funny, because it seems that the “industry plant” label gets stamped when people decide they don’t fuck with your music or presence—whether it’s immediate or latent. — Matthew Ritchie
2.The numbers matter…or do they?
Recent examples: Are Doechii’s monthly audience stats real or are bots being used? How much do Clipse and Travis Scott’s sales matter when bundles are involved?
We all know so much now. We have access to more minutiae, more process, more of the game behind the game when it comes to the cultures we care about—not just more than the average reader knew 20 years ago, but on par with what used to pass for expertise. So why do we all sound so fucking stupid?
Modern day rap fans present arguments like record executives and GMs. And this is where the numbers come in, the proof any dumbass with a phone can reference and point to when logic fails them, that allows them to act as armchair agents and executives.
Now there are ticket sales and merch sales and streaming numbers to parse across charts, you can point to TikTok sounds and Instagram reels and Distrokid, a Sanskrit that can be gamed and remixed to say whatever you want it to say, that NLE Choppa is more popular than Kendrick Lamar or that Doechii’s large YouTube audience is because of bots.
Fans have access to numbers and use them—even when they don’t fully understand the context. Monthly Spotify listeners, first-week album sales, streams, bundle sales, Hot 100 debuts—we should stop. Most of it is label-driven spin that we end up adopting into our music conversations.
Quick, gun to your head, what is an “album sale?” —Abe Beame
3.Rap sucks now, why can’t it be like the old days
Recent examples: A good amount of commentary around any album or rapper coming out the modern “underground” scene
In general there tends to be two types of people who complain about “rap music today:” People that are old and out of the rat race of discovery, and people who are boring and close minded. Sometimes they can even be the same person.
The music and culture that were popping in your youth eventually falls away, but there’s always something new and exciting happening if you want to find it. Rap in 2025 is as exciting as I can remember it. The underground is full of a variety of styles, personas, and experimentation. Rap is becoming regional again, with Detroit’s rap scene separating from Milwaukee’s rap scene which separates itself from New York or Buffalo’s scene. And, of course, LA is always LA. There’s music that sounds very online but there’s also music that attempts to reflect the griminess of outside. It’s also never been a better time to be an older rapper, still making music and touring around the world. Rap is global, women have a bigger imprint, rappers are challenging masculinity and sexuality a lot more openly. Hell, rappers are challenging what it even means to rap or be lyrical. It’s a great time to be a fan…if you’re willing to look beyond nostalgia. —Isreal Daramola
4.Can you separate the art from the rapper
Recent examples: Kanye West during his public unraveling; Diddy facing a federal trial
In the 1960s, French philosopher and critic Roland Barthes published an essay called “Death of the Author,” fervently arguing against the practice of assuming intent in literature based on the author’s own identity beyond the text. Six decades later, the concept has gone through a twisted game of telephone and is now popularly used to discuss whether or not you’re a bad person for still listening to Chris Brown. The question is no longer about how to assess the quality of art; it is a red herring that is used to contort rationalizations for why you choose to continue to support or listen to the latest de rigeur controversial celebrity, from R. Kelly to XXXTENTACION to Diddy.
Bastardization aside, the short answer for whether or not you can separate the art from the artist is simply: it depends. Is the action they are under scrutiny for an indistinguishable part of their work? Does their behavior or history or behavior have a material harm that can be quantified? Does their success come at the expense of accountability for their actions? The answer will always be a case-by-case decision tree based on your own spectrum of morals, values, and priorities—and ultimately, the only person you need to answer to for your individual taste is yourself. —Shamira Ibrahim
5.All modern day women rappers do is sell sex
Recent examples: Anything having to do with Megan Thee Stallion or Cardi B or Sexyy Red or…
As long as entertainment has existed, there have been genre specialists who use a niche lens to pull us into their world—mob movies that use spectacle to examine the human condition, horror films that use moral panic as a tool to explore how communities respond to crises. Rap is no exception, nor is the topic of sex—how we desire it, use it to establish power, dominance, confidence, or communicate intimacy. Why can’t women talk about their experiences with such a dynamic?
The refrain from often puritanical critics is that the material is unoriginal, immoral, and excessively ubiquitous in the women’s rap scene. There is always space to assess whether a female artist discussing sex is engaged in exploration versus being subject to exploitation. Most of the time, the concern is a moral pretense for personal distaste more than a genuine concern for the impact of openly discussing illicit themes, particularly given that the plethora of sex records and double entendres penned by men receives much less scrutiny.
Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with using sex as a lens of navigating the human experience, the same way we commonly accept “coke rap” as escapist spectacle or have come to understand the pathos that scaffolds some of the most compelling drill records. For every prolific narcotic troubadour there is a purveyor of lust and the ways it shapes our lives, and while both topics may come fraught with stigmatized implications for discussing them in public, they are no less valid ways of exploring human life and how we navigate the world.—Shamira Ibrahim
6.Where do white people fit in hip-hop?
Recent examples: Ian’s role as a rapper; figures like Adam22 and their role in hip-hop journalism
The cliché I’ve heard my whole life is that white people are “guests in hip-hop.” But what happens when the guest house grows so big it stops feeling like a home and starts looking more like a shopping mall? That’s the tension at the heart of this debate. Because whether as artists, executives, media personalities, or fans, white people have always been part of hip-hop. Their involvement used to require a certain dedication, effort, and earnestness. (A famous early example is Vanilla Ice, who cut his teeth battling in Dallas before becoming the most loathed yet successful rapper in the country.)
But hip-hop has since grown into a commercial giant, and those old guardrails have mostly vanished in the name of reach. I see it in rap media: figures like Adin Ross, DJ Vlad, Trap Lore Ross, and Adam22 have carved out real influence. They frustrate purists and traditionalists, who consider them vultures exploiting rap’s underbelly. But many casuals—and frankly, fans who feel their niche corners of the genre aren’t covered seriously—have embraced them.
When it comes to white rappers, they tend to fall into three lanes: the try-hards who win fans through hard work; the cynical trolls who lean into racist tropes; and the ones we’re still trying to figure out. (I would put Ian in that third bucket for now.)
The truth is, the toothpaste is out of the bottle on this one. Hip-hop has grown too broad and diverse for serious gatekeeping, meaning whiteness in hip-hop no longer requires good faith—leaving room for charlatans and scammers as long as they can get market share.—Dimas Sanfiorenzo
7.Kanye and the notion that even a broken clock is right twice a day
Recent examples: Anytime Kanye pulls a Kanye
There’s a set of techniques used by mentalists and fortune-tellers known as “cold reading” that involves rushing through a series of general statements while simultaneously paying attention to the audience’s reactions and nonverbal cues to land at more educated guesses that seem unusually insightful. The most popular technique, known as “shotgunning,” is exactly what it sounds like—deluging a target with a large quantity of information, under the hopes that at least one of the statements will elicit a reaction that they can continue to home in on under the guise of extrasensory insight.
In a similar fashion, the insistence that Kanye is making a point, however vague, amongst his volatile outbursts requires a willful ignorance of the incoherent allegations that preceded whatever microscopic gem is embedded amongst the chaos.
I’m not saying that being impressed when Kanye lands on the broad side of a potentially relevant point during a social media rampage is tantamount to putting your faith in a curbside psychic, but I’m not saying it’s all that different, either. One is a fun parlor trick that may cost you $10; the other involves dismissing years of delusional ravings to cling to oblique conspiracies that may be supported by nuggets of truth. If I had to choose my poison, I’d rather give up the $10. —Shamira Ibrahim
8.Sampling has gotten lazy
Recent examples: Latto’s flip of “Big Energy;” countless drill songs that sample 2000s songs
Sampling is a foundational practice in rap. And yet, debates about sampling—especially when it’s obvious or faithful to the original—have become more frequent. These debates usually resurface when a rapper reheats a classic pop-soul nacho into something soulless: Latto’s “Big Energy” summoning a third-generation flip of Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” (itself a “Genius of Love” sample), or Drake’s lifeless lift of Daft Punk’s “One More Time” for “Circo Loco.” As uninspired as those moments may be, they shouldn’t be the starting point for the “Sampling is lazy” argument.
Sampling keeps rap production evolving. It’s in the art of chopping the drums from an obscure 1999 Memphis horrorcore track or finding a vocal loop buried in an Italian film soundtrack that somehow makes you cry while someone raps about pain and money in the same breath. Sure, sampling can be lazy—just like recycling bars or ideas can be. But if we’re going to critique it, we should be more specific about what we’re actually calling out. — Matthew Ritchie
9.What do we do with Drake
Recent examples: Is Drake a culture vulture, using younger, regional rappers to his advantage? Can he really be the GOAT if he doesn’t write his own raps?
Nobody teaches you how to react when your heroes die. It’s becoming increasingly, disturbingly familiar to watch a favorite rapper, actor or athlete snuffed out in the prime, and yet it’s startling how many adults never pass this lesson down: Once their favorite MC loses their creative juice—“dies” in the arena of public opinion—you have to let them go.
This includes me. Drake is still being discussed to exhaustion. The questions are endless: Is he a colonizer? Has he commercialized the game? Is he on the Epstein list? It’s enervating when other rap news is happening and the Kendrick and Drake beef is preventing younger, hungrier artists from being covered in a way they deserve.
Drake is filthy rich, still chasing the fame that he was hungry for over a decade ago. He’s clearly addicted. He’s been around so long and accumulated so many Ws and Ls that he’s become a Rorschach, a blank canvas for fans, haters, and commentators to project meaning onto. The centering of him in hip-hop discussions has now come at the expense of real journalism, and there’s no clearer indication you’re heading for a dumb exchange than the other participant having an owl emoji attached to their username. If there is a legacy of the beef, it is that they have fractured rap journalism completely, fractured rap coverage into lazy, endless Drake discourse. —Jayson Buford
10.Tory Lanez was railroaded, he’s actually innocent.
Recent examples: This topic pops up about once a week, usually whenever Tory’s lawyers file a motion or hold a sham press conference
This is less about Tory Lanez shooting Meg thee Stallion in the foot on July 12th 2020 and more about the near constant chorus of men (and some women) who will contort themselves in knots whenever any sort of charge or accusation is leveled at a celebrity.
First, we must acknowledge that we live in a country that has oppressed, lied to, incarcerated and murdered Black men throughout its history at unprecedented levels. When you set up institutions to carry out these specific functions against a specific group of people for centuries—including a media apparatus who have long done much of this work for our police and the judicial system by labeling Black suspects guilty on accusation—what you may produce is a splinter group of very hip-hop coded countercultural contrarians who will come to any table with healthy skepticism regarding “conventional wisdom, particularly if that person is trying to be one of the first rappers to sell an album as an NFTs.
Having said that, we also can’t excuse the willful ignorance, the misogyny, the bad faith devil's advocates always lurking in replies when there are actual victims involved. —Abe Beame
11.Who's the GOAT?
Recent examples: Is Kendrick Lamar in the GOAT after the Drake W? Lil Wayne didn’t get picked for the Super Bowl, he’s still a GOAT
In 2000, LL Cool J released his eighth studio album, G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time). With it, he put a name to a conversation that had been floating around for years. Ever since rap became a commercial force in the ’90s, debates over who’s the greatest have been constant. LL staked his claim, even though at the time the argument mostly centered on 2Pac vs. Biggie, with Jay-Z and Nas close behind. Over the next decade, more names—like Eminem and Lil Wayne—were added to the mix.
Lately, though, the GOAT debate feels harder to define. We’re now four generations deep into rap, each with different sensibilities. The argument often splits along generational lines: if you were born before the ’70s, you laugh at anyone not named Rakim; if the ’80s, it’s anyone not named Jay-Z; if you’re a ’90s baby, you make a “maa” noise anytime Lil Wayne comes up. Despite his losses, Drake still belongs in the conversation—and rightly so—after dominating in a way few ever have. Kendrick Lamar, too, is a clear contender, especially after dismantling someone as powerful as The Boy.
But the whole idea seems to be losing steam. The word itself has been watered down—everything is “goated” now—and younger fans seem more apathetic, maybe even accepting that the next dominant rapper won’t look or sound like a traditional lyricist. GOAT debates seem to be fading, and maybe that’s for the best. —Dimas Sanfiorenzo
12.Modern rappers lack substance
Recent examples: Basically most popular rappers under 30, from Playboi Carti to Sexyy Red to Ice Spice
Similar to crying about a lack of real lyricism, the idea of which rap music has “substance” can be heavily pointed. Most can’t tell you what they mean by substance beyond vague complaints about too much materialist chatter. Griselda tends to appeal to rap fans who claim to enjoy lyricism and substance but they are big time advocates of rapping about jewelry and cars. GOATs like Jay-Z and Lil Wayne—and my personal choice, Ghostface Killah—all excelled at it. But if I had to try to clarify what they actually are referring to I would call it a vague notion of sophistication and witticism to the way people rap rather than the actual things they’re rapping about.
Back in the day, haters mocked ringtone rap or certain trap styles for being repetitive, simplistic, or childish. They heard slurred flows or nursery rhyme cadences and dismissed it as beneath them. But pop is hard, with the most difficult aspect in art being making something that seems effortless. IIt takes humility to not try and do too much just to prove you can. And, beyond that, the value of music—like any art—is as much about personal expression as anything else.
The way Lil Yachty or Tyler, the Creator rap about their cars express as much about their differing personalities as much as some deep, Kendrick excursion into his psyches. But there’s always been a class of hip-hop fans that wants music to be homework and streetbound guidance counseling rather than just good music, and more power to them. I'm just tired of arguing about it. —Isreal Daramola
13.The use of AI in rap music
Recent examples: Alchemist using AI for "Next to You" cover; Timbaland loudly championing it with basically everything he does now
AI is full of contradictions. Countless people with email jobs use it daily, while entrepreneurial creatives have folded it into their workflows. And yet, there’s still a stigma: despite how widespread it is, people talk about hating “AI slop,” and a common insult for bland writing remains, “this reads like ChatGPT wrote it—look at the fucking em dash.”
At the same time, there’s millions of dollars in investment money just for mentioning AI, even though most AI companies aren’t anywhere close to profitable. And fans will get mad if an artist uses it…until they think it’s kinda funny, or cool, or both. When Alchemist used AI to cut corners on single artwork, or when Timbaland uploaded another producer’s beat into an AI program without consent, the condemnation was loud. But just last year, Metro Boomin’s “BBL Drizzy”—which used an AI-generated sample—was met with near-universal praise.
So no, fans aren’t totally consistent about it. And frankly, it’s going to get harder for AI skeptics to stay catholic against it if they love music. AI is already being used in subtle ways throughout the music-making process. Separating the tech from the art will be nearly impossible. Right now, the debate is stuck in an arbitrary grey zone: if AI is used lazily or too obviously for self-serving reasons, fans will rebel. But if it’s used in a way deemed creative? They’re mostly chill about it. —Dimas Sanfiorenzo
14.Rap media is the problem
Recent examples: The role of YouTube creators like DJ Vlad or platforms like No Jumper and if what they do even counts as journalism; stan pages, anytime they or the artist they stan don’t like a review
I have the word “journalism” muted on Twitter, which might seem odd for someone who is, technically, a journalist. But the conversation—especially around rap journalism—has become so reductive and circular.
What we do has been devalued from every angle: by the companies that once paid us, the artists we cover, bad-faith streamers and YouTubers who disrespect the craft and give the rest of us a bad name—and by readers who either lump us in with the vultures or don’t even skim the copy before trolling.Almost every week, some new discourse erupts over a critic being “too negative” toward an artist with a militant fanbase. At the same time, there’s nonstop debate about the ethics (or lack thereof) of people who blur the line between journalist and content creator—playing detective, trafficking in salacious details and clickbait, or, in the case of most rap pages, just making shit up from the shadows.These aren’t just petty squabbles—they’re part of a broader assault on rap journalism, one that mirrors the decades-long erosion of trust in media more generally. Still, I’m not hopeless. Rap journalism has always been DIY. We fight to tell these stories. And as long as rap exists, so will thoughtful, fair, and nuanced coverage of it. —Abe Beame
15.Albums are too long nowadays
Recent examples: At 30 tracks, Playboi Carti’s MUSIC is too long and all over the place
Yesterday, I was listening to Charge It 2 Da Game, the cult classic album from No Limit rapper Silkk the Shocker.
The runtime of the record is one hour and 17 minutes, about the time of a season finale of the prestige television show. I didn’t care because it sustained a coherent mood and tone. It was what was once considered an “Album.” It made me wonder about the nature of long albums.
Sometimes, in the new era of streaming, dudes are overpacking their LPs with songs hoping to beat a streaming system that values volume. What the debate ultimately comes down to is a nostalgia for the full album experience, viewing the rap album as a coherent, start to finish idea, that some rap fans cherish, and others believe either doesn’t matter anymore, or never really existed beyond a few outliers. I say listen to the record—the runtime matters less than the swag of the music does. —Jayson Buford