Five hip-hop albums we want to hear in 2026
2025 was an impressive year for hip-hop albums, with rappers of all generations dropping stellar projects.
We saw the return of Clipse, earning them an ‘Album of the Year’ Grammy nomination for Let God Sort Em Out. Nas and DJ Premier released their long-awaited joint album. Chance The Rapper made his big comeback, with Tyler, The Creator continuing to dominate. Artists like MIKE, Billy Woods, and Navy Blue also delivered.
But still, there were some names we couldn’t help but crave albums from. Artists who have unleashed classics in the past and have the capability of doing it once more. Those who have it within them to shape the sound of the late 2020s.
Below, we take a look at five hip-hop acts we hope make their big returns in 2026 – some approaching two decades without activity.
Five hip-hop albums we want to hear in 2026:
Q-Tip
Q-Tip has gone 17 years without a solo album, but he hasn’t been completely absent. The legendary MC released the final Tribe Called Quest album, We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, in 2016, and he’s also been busy as an executive producer on Danny Brown’s uknowhatimsayin¿.
Albums like Amplified and The Renaissance proved his prolificness as a solo artist, and he’s been constantly teasing new projects. Over the years, he’s confirmed many unreleased LPs such as The Last Zulu, AlGoRhythms, and Riotdiaries. Hopefully, 2026 is the year we get at least one of them.
The Roots
The Roots have one of the best hip-hop catalogues of all time, but they’ve been on somewhat of a hiatus over the past decade. The group, fronted by Black Thought and Questlove, dropped their last project, …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin, in 2014. 12 years later, the collective are preparing to release their new album titled End Game.
It’s set to include some special guests, with Questlove revealing, “I think we’ve worked with everyone. the Benny The Butcher song from Griselda is still on there. Syd from The Internet – her song is still on there. Everybody and their mom has kinda been working with us, but I still don’t know what the final configuration is.”
J Cole
J Cole has been keeping a low profile over the past couple of years. Although he released his Might Delete Later mixtape in 2024, it was awkwardly followed by him regretting his Kendrick Lamar and Drake diss track, ‘7 Minute Drill’, and removing it from the project completely as a way to exit the beef.
Aside from the aforementioned tape and his Dreamville compilation, D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape, it’s coming up to five years since his last studio effort, The Off-Season. For those reasons, his upcoming album, The Fall Off, is much-anticipated. Considering it’s also been referred to as his final album, there’s a lot on the line.
Jay-Z
Jay-Z only speaks when necessary. With his 2017 album, 4:44, the now 56-year-old released a late-career gem that stands tall alongside classic records such as Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, and The Black Album. Produced entirely by No ID, the project finds Hov at his most vulnerable, touching on everything from cheating on his wife, Beyoncé, to his mother coming out as a lesbian.
Eight years later, the world could do with a bit of healing from Jay’s wisdom. His longtime collaborator, Memphis Bleek, recently said, “I just was with him in Vegas. He just came out on the show, like, yo, my n*gga, they went stupid. I said, ‘Listen, I know you working. Save me a verse.’ He’s like, ‘Alright, I got you.’ So if it happens, it happens.” We’ll have to wait and see if there’s any truth to it.
Mos Def
Mos Def (now known as Yasiin Bey) is one of the most elusive artists in the music industry. Even when he does release new music, he doesn’t make it the most accessible. His last solo album, Negus, was available as a “listening installation” at the Brooklyn Museum for 10 weeks in 2019. Then, his 2022 Black Star album, No Fear of Time, was only on podcast network Luminary before moving it over to Bandcamp.
His next project, Forensics, a collaboration with The Alchemist, was supposed to be released in 2025, but it never saw the light of day. Mos has described the album as “lo-fi, hi-tech high art,” and is set to have another unconventional release. Either way, we’ll be hunting it down.