By Gary Suarez in Newsletter — Jan 1, 2026

5 Hip-Hop & Rap Albums I Overlooked In 2025

Some must-hear picks from the old year by McKinley Dixon, BunnaB, 067Red, and more to rock in 2026.

McKinley Dixon. Photo credit: Dennis Larance

Now that the New Year's festivities are done (I watched Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery in my sweatpants on the couch), the unspoken promise of 2026 can finally commence with letting us all down.

Yet as my text messages fade from late night salutations into preemptive weekend scheming, I'm not all-the-way ready to close the book on 2025. To be clear, it was a pretty lousy year all around, though I spent the back half of it on a necessary self-improvement tip. But before the new release spigot starts flowing, I have some outstanding year-end business to attend to.

This newsletter remains a one-man-show, so to speak, which means I have only so much bandwidth to cover the breadth of the indie hip-hop and rap music underground each week. As such, for one reason or another, some truly deserving 2025 albums and artists didn't get covered over the past 12 months. And that fucking bothers me.

So, with that in mind, here are five rap records from 2025 that didn't get the CABBAGES treatment–but should've.

McKinley Dixon, Magic, Alive! [City Slang]

This right here was the impetus for putting together the list. The Richmond-born and Chicago-based emcee rightfully made some other outlets' 'Best of 2025' rankings with his ruminative and radical follow-up to 2023's Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? LP. Anyone questioning the critical acclaim surrounding his splendid songcraft and subversive storytelling need only drop the proverbial needle on this one and take it all in for a full immersive listen.

067Red, RED SHOT MY PORSCHE WINDOW [Deadpark / White Stone Ent.]

Considering his East Coast-informed flow, the Boston-area cosigns by BoriRock and Estee Nack, as well as the type of (self-)production he favors, you might be surprised to learned this masked cineaste hails from Los Angeles. Both this project and the subsequently released SUPREME NOFACE caught me off guard in the best way in Q4, their sonic and thematic parallels with both classic Griselda and Feed The Family modernity serving as inroads to an artist sure to impress in 2026.

BunnaB, Sweet Lick [Ice Cream Girl Ent. / Artist Partner Group]

Anyone who caught PLUTO and YKNIECE's "WHIM WHAMIEE" or Metro Boomin's 2000s/2010s revival A Futuristic Summa knows that Atlanta had fresh new momentum in 2025–and this rising rapper was there for all of it. A former Atlantic Records signee, she parlayed her viral "Bunna Summa" and "No Drought" breakthroughs into this ten-track mixtape of audacious party-primed cuts laced with effervescent hooks and unyielding energy.

I'll Never Die, Genesis [I'll Never Die]

With a Bebe's Kids level of resilience, this New York centric artist collective ostensibly helmed by rapper-producer JUNE! slipped this compilation through the mid-December cracks. Showcasing the talents of Jay Cinema, deedee, Reiiki APOLLO, and INSID3OUT, among others, with guest assists from the likes of August Fanon, the set provides a necessary alternative to the relative complacency of the rap mainstream as it incubates potential new indie stars.

12k Gotti, 800° [10k]

MIKE's vibrant imprint is home to some genuinely compelling artists (duendita, Niontay, SALIMATA), and the Cleveland rapper behind 2023's "Ashanti Flow" is certainly no exception to that rule. Supremely lyrical with a dexterous sense of flow, he sounds as authentic and proficient spitting over sleek refurbished boom bap and nostalgic R&B rebuilds as he does over cutting-edge drill and trap-informed beats across this diverse yet coherent project.