At one point in time, hip-hop and its rich culture was a suppressed underground art form that was not present in the mainstream. As a scene created by the youth, it had no respect.
Unlike disco, funk or pop-rock, the establishment didn’t broadcast rap music to the masses on a wide scale and most definitely didn’t consider it a threat. However, the genre’s growing popularity nationwide and internationally over the years has made it impossible for the mainstream media to suppress what was an innovative phenomenon.
However, with each generation, new technologies have meant a change in the means of consumption. When hip-hop emerged, sales were calculated based on the number of physical 12″ vinyls sold. This method then began to take into account the number of cassette tapes sold, and this was how rap was consumed well into the mid-1980s.
However, the 1990s saw a shift to CDs, and the sale of vinyl began to decline slowly. Fortunately, this smaller, shinier disc was still physical. But in 2003, when the iTunes Store released a feature for purchasing and downloading digital music, sales entered a non-physical era.
Streaming has been a gift and curse to artists worldwide, including rappers. At first, this was fine as people were still purchasing and downloading music, which was easily quantifiable. However, in the late 2000s, platforms such as MySpace and Spotify began to appear, where the public could access popular music for free.
The consumption of music for free on platforms such as Spotify has shown hip-hop to be one of the world’s most popular genres. However, since the public rollout of Spotify, artists and institutions alike have been concerned about the way streaming has skewed and distorted album sales.
Although it has hindered the calculation of album sales, it has set more visible and apparent milestones of success in the music industry. Akin to YouTube, when an artist manages to accrue more than 10 million regularly, it is a sign that people are gravitating towards their music. Often, these numbers can lead musicians to sign record deals directly.
While entering the hundreds of millions is a feat aspiring musicians could only wish to achieve, surpassing one billion streams is the diamond standard of streaming. It is rare for an artist to have more than a handful of tracks that have passed this threshold, but even one is an astronomical achievement.
Although reaching one billion streams is usually an indicator of an artist’s popularity, longevity and legendary status in hip-hop, occasionally, one-hit-wonders find themselves exceeding one billion and then struggling to generate traction with anything else.
24kGoldn finds himself in the club following a viral hit in 2020 that stemmed from TikTok with not much else to show, and Fetty Wap surpassed one billion with his only successful hit, ‘Trap Queen’.
It may not necessarily be full of legends, but the ‘One Billion Club’ is a good sign of who hip-hop considers the best artists right now. Below you can see 100 tracks that have exceeded the unfathomable number.
Every hip-hop song with over one billion streams:
- Drake – ‘God’s Plan’
- Drake – ‘Passionfruit’
- Drake – ‘In My Feelings’
- Drake – ‘Hotline Bling’
- Drake – ‘Nice For What’
- Drake – ‘Nonstop’
- Drake featuring Wizkid & Kyla – ‘One Dance’
- Drake featuring Rihanna – ‘Too Good’
- Drake – ‘Toosie Slide’
- Future featuring Drake ‘Life Is Good’
- Meek Mill featuring Drake ‘Going Bad’
- 21 Savage – ‘Bank Account’
- Post Malone featuring 21 Savage – ‘Rock Star’
- Juice Wrld – Lucid Dreams’
- Juice Wrld – ‘All Girls Are the Same’
- Juice Wrld – ‘Robbery’
- Eminem featuring Juice Wrld ‘Godzilla’
- Post Malone – ‘White Iverson’
- Post Malone featuring 21 Savage – ‘Rock Star’
- Post Malone featuring Quavo – ‘Congratulations’
- Post Malone – ‘Go Flex’
- Post Malone – ‘Circles’
- Post Malone – ‘Wow.’
- Post Malone – ‘Better Now’
- Post Malone – ‘I Fall Apart’
- Post Malone featuring Young Thug – ‘Goodbyes’
- Post Malone featuring Ty Dolla $ign – ‘Psycho’
- Post Malone – ‘Candy Paint’
- Post Malone featuring Swae Lee – ‘Sunflower’
- XXXTentacion – ‘SAD!’
- XXXTentacion – ‘Jocelyn Flores’
- XXXTentacion – ‘Moonlight’
- XXXTentacion – ‘Everybody Dies in Their Nightmares’
- XXXTentacion featuring Trippie Redd – ‘F**k Love’
- XXXTentacion – ‘Changes’
- XXXTentacion ‘Look At Me!’
- XXXTentacion – ‘Hope”
- XXXTentacion ‘Revenge’
- Lil Peep and XXXTentacion – ‘Falling Down’
- Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth – ‘See You Again’
- Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa featuring Bruno Mars – ‘Young, Wild & Free’
- Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa and Imagine Dragons – ‘Sucker for Pain’
- Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus – ‘Old Town Road (Remix)’
- Lil Nas X featuring Jack Harlow – ‘Industry Baby’
- Lil Nas X – ‘That’s What I Want’
- Lil Nas X – ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’
- French Montana featuring Swae Lee – ‘Unforgettable’
- Roddy Ricch – ‘The Box’
- DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch – ‘Rockstar’
- DJ Khaled featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper & Lil Wayne – ‘I’m the One’
- Travis Scott – ‘Goosebumps’
- Travis Scott – ‘Sicko Mode’
- Travis Scott – ‘Highest in the Room’
- Travis Scott – ‘Butterfly Effect’
- Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott and Offset – ‘Zeze’
- Lil Uzi Vert – ‘XO Tour Llif3’
- 24kGoldn featuring Iann Dior – ‘Mood’
- Kendrick Lamar – ‘HUMBLE.’
- Kendrick Lamar featuring SZA – ‘All the Stars’
- Kendrick Lamar featuring Zacari – ‘LOVE.’
- Kendrick Lamar featuring Jay Rock – ‘Money Trees’
- Kendrick Lamar – ‘DNA.’
- J. Cole – ‘No Role Modelz’
- J. Cole – ‘Middle Child’
- J. Cole – “Wet Dreamz”
- Eminem – ‘Lose Yourself’
- Eminem featuring Nate Dogg – ‘Till I Collapse’
- Eminem – ‘Without Me’
- Eminem – ‘The Real Slim Shady’
- Eminem featuring Rihanna – ‘Love the Way You Lie’
- Eminem – ‘Mockingbird’
- Eminem – ‘Rap God’
- Kanye West – ‘Stronger’
- Kanye West – ‘Heartless’
- Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx – ‘Gold Digger’
- Kanye West, Rihanna and Paul McCartney – FourFiveSeconds’
- Jay-Z and Kanye West – ‘N***as in Paris’
- A$AP Rocky featuring Skepta – ‘Praise The Lord (Da Shine)’
- 50 Cent – ‘In Da Club’
- Pop Smoke featuring Lil Baby and DaBaby – ‘For the Night’
- Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin – ‘I Like It’
- Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion – ‘WAP’
- Desiigner – ‘Panda’
- Coolio featuring L.V. – ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’
- Doja Cat – ‘Woman’
- Doja Cat – ‘Need to Know’
- Doja Cat – ‘Say So’
- Doja Cat featuring SZA – ‘Kiss Me More’
- Lil Baby and Gunna – ‘Dip Too Hard’
- Internet Money featuring Don Toliver, Gunna and Nav – ‘Lemonade’
- Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Dogg ‘Still D.R.E.’
- Tyler, The Creator featuring Kali Uchis – ‘See You Again’
- Future – ‘Mask Off’
- Pop Smoke – ‘Dior’
- Pop Smoke – ‘What You Know Bout Love’
- Fetty Wap – ‘Trap Queen’
- Nicki Minaj – ‘Starships’
- YNW Melly – ‘Murder on My Mind’
- Meek Mill featuring Drake – ‘Going Bad’
- Lil Peep – ‘Star Shopping’
