The Top Rap Song of Every Year Since 1989

Since Billboard first began its national survey of song sales in the 1940s, the ever-changing musical landscape has necessitated a growing portfolio of charts that capture the methods, sounds, and places around the nation – and then the world – where music is consumed. Thirty-five years ago on March 11, 1989, Billboard debuted its first rap chart – Hot Rap Singles, with The Stop the Violence Movement’s “Self Destruction” crowning the initial list. With the genre’s national profile firmly established thanks to acts such as Run-D.M.C. and LL Cool J, the first rap-dedicated chart arrived partly, as the list’s first manager, Terri Rossi wrote, to, “give proper credit to the performers, writers and producers who make this music so successful.” While Hot Rap Songs was originally conceived as a bi-weekly sales chart, the rapid popularity and interest in the genre forced a change to a weekly sales recap before the chart reached its first anniversary. Call it prophetic: The increasing consumption of rap music and growing appetite for hip-hop culture set the stage for the genre’s explosive impact in the coming decades. Since that first ranking, Billboard has monitored and reported popular tastes through every chapter of rap’s history: the...