Since Spotify launched a decade ago, hip-hop has splintered into countless new directions-and streaming culture has only intensified the process. Streaming platforms have become a core part of the music's story: They're not just shaping the listener's experience, they're informing the sounds and styles of the music itself. But attempting to trace the path of this decade of evolution-in any straightforward way, at least-is enough to give anyone a headache. Hip-hop isn't just one genre; it's hundreds of subgenres, forming one hectic, complicated whole.
The gulf between hip-hop's biggest stars and its lesser-known names has never been wider, yet previously unknown artists can blow up overnight on the momentum of a song they uploaded themselves. Regional rap scenes that were once only for insiders have become the backbone of the mainstream. And thanks to the internet's everything-at-once-ness, trends often seem to shift in the blink of an eye.
It's a lot to process. Enter Glenn McDonald, Spotify's data alchemist ; in essence, his job is to translate a practically infinite set of cold, hard data-millions of streams, saves, playlists, and beyond-into a reflection of the human experience of listening to music. Applying the rigorous approach of a data scientist to the perspective of a music critic, he can not only identify existing patterns, but catch new genres as they emerge.
Behold McDonald's passion project, Every Noise At Once. The site is a sprawling, hyper-detailed index of genres, from massive umbrellas like hip-hop or country to the nichest of micro-genres you never knew existed. (Deep discofox, anyone?) Through a combination of machine learning, Spotify's music intelligence division, and McDonald's own analysis (plus a bit of creative license when it comes to coining new genre names), the site currently identifies and indexes a whopping 2,215 genres. Click on the map for hip hop and you'll find yourself entangled in a dense web of associated artists from across Spotify's database; seen in list form, you can trace the degree of overlap with other genres. You can also branch out into nerdcore or old school nederhop, each accompanied by a representative playlist. It's not just a data map of Spotify users' listening habits, it's a visual deep-dive into how trends emerge and evolve.
Using Every Noise's data-along with some additional information from McDonald, including the rough number of artists per individual genre and the amount of both casual and serious listeners-we've identified the five most significant trends in the past decade of hip-hop, alongside playlists to explore. It's a means of articulating all the subtleties of the ever-changing culture, at least before the next offshoot is born.
Trap Music 350 major core artists, 3500 relevant artists
10 million serious listeners, 40 million casual listeners
Back when Spotify emerged, trap music had just barely begun to cross over into the mainstream. Mid- 00s pioneers like Jeezy and T.I. had made their mark on the charts, but in most parts of the country, trap hadn't had much sway on the sound of popular rap. That'd soon change: Gucci Mane was gearing up to release his breakthrough album, 2009's unexpectedly pop-friendly The State vs. Radric Davis; meanwhile, the popularity of down-South subgenres like crunk and snap music in the mid and late 00s had brought regional rap trends to mainstream prominence. The burgeoning popularity of streaming music doubtlessly played a part in the way the sound of Southern street rap came to influence hip-hop at large: With control in the hands of the users, what was once at the periphery moved toward the center.
As expected, Every Noise At Once shows a significant amount of overlap between what's considered trap music-which runs the gamut from Jeezy to Waka Flocka Flame to Future to BlocBoy JB-and what falls under the similar categories of southern hip hop and dirty south rap. (There are even further subsections of those categories: Deep trap appears to focus on relatively lesser-known artists, like Nashville's Starlito and DC's Fat Trel, where the even more specific deep southern trap skews toward Baton Rouge rappers like Boosie, Webbie, and Kevin Gates.) But it's equally unsurprising that, within the scope of all that's considered rap on the site, trap and its related offshoots take up significant real estate near the top of the list: In 2018, trap music is the sound of popular hip-hop.
Emo Rap / Vapor Trap Emo rap: 250 major artists, 900 relevant artists
280k serious listeners, 6 million casual listeners
Vapor trap: 300 major artists, 2000 relevant artists
1 million serious listeners, 10 million casual listeners
Odds are you've never heard the term vapor trap before. The term is one of many that McDonald intuitively coined in order to more precisely identify genres as they form in real time. (See also: escape room, slow game, electrofox.) But its artist map and associated playlist is immediately recognizable to anyone who's acquainted with the movements often referred to as Soundcloud rap or emo rap that have dominated streaming sites and, increasingly, the Billboard charts in recent years. The artists indexed here have significant overlap with those grouped under Every Noise's emo rap category, though its most central acts-Lil Peep, XXXTENTACION, Yung Lean-do skew further toward guitar-driven interpolations of alt-rock, emo, and grunge than those listed as vapor trap. Still, they are easily understood together-the sound of a new generation of rap forming a newer, more lawless canon.
The burgeoning scene's marquee artists and songs-think Lil Xan, Wifisfuneral, and Ski Mask The Slump God, alongside slightly older internet-rap predecessors like Denzel
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
Since Spotify launched a decade ago, hip-hop has splintered into countless new directions-and streaming culture has only intensified the process. Streaming platforms have become a core part of the music's story: They're not just shaping the listener's experience, they're informing the sounds and styles of the music itself. But attempting to trace the path of this decade of evolution-in any straightforward way, at least-is enough to give anyone a headache. Hip-hop isn't just one genre; it's hundreds of subgenres, forming one hectic, complicated whole.
