This year has offered us many huge rap and hip-hop projects so far, but which is the best? We’ve seen major releases from Metro Boomin, Travis Scott, Lil Uzi Vert, and many other artists. Traditionally, most major hip-hop albums are released during the summer, and that tradition has ceased to persist.

Starting off with Nas’ Magic 2 album, Nas releases the second implementation of the Magic series; featuring 50 Cent and 21 Savage, continuing his legacy with undying consistency. As this is the fifth album Nas has done with music producer Hit-Boy in four years, Nas proves to stay relevant regardless of being in the game for nearly thirty years.

Undoubtedly, one of Metro Boomin’s most successful hip-hop projects was the soundtrack for Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. As this featured many major artists such as A$AP Rocky, Lil Uzi Vert, Don Toliver, 21 Savage and many more, this project was the absolute culmination for the newest Spider-Verse animated film.

One of the biggest titles that came out this summer was Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape. With a whopping twenty-six song tracklist, this album touched on elements of heavy metal and rock that gave fans a new experimental side of Lil Uzi’s instrumentation, as well as featuring major hip hop artists such as Travis Scott, Nicki Minaj, and Don Toliver.

Finally, we have Travis Scott’s UTOPIA. UTOPIA is the long-awaited album since Scott’s record-breaking and Grammy-awarded ASTROWORLD in 2018. UTOPIA released alongside its cinematic rendition titled Circus Maximus, featuring the likes of Drake, Playboi Carti, Beyoncé, 21 Savage, The Weeknd, and many others, UTOPIA is Travis Scott’s most successful album considering it sold 496,000 album units in the first week of being released, making UTOPIA the biggest hip hop album of 2023 so far.

But who knows, will there be even bigger hip-hop releases before the year is over? Many rappers such as A$AP Rocky and Drake have mentioned their own albums being in the works to be dropped soon, therefore only time will tell.