Today marks the first time in 35 years that there is not a single rap song in Billboard’s Top 40. 

The reason this should be concerning and deeply troubling is because it confirms what I’ve been saying for the past few years. Something few people have wanted to hear. Hiphop has lost its way. It has drifted from its original purpose of being the voice of the voiceless—a tool and genre designed to communicate the heart, pain, and oppression of marginalized people. Instead, it has become a commodity for mainstream record labels, crafted to promote superficial messages about partying and having fun.

Few people today have a soundtrack for the pain and hurt we are experiencing in our nation and our world. A large part of this is because modern hiphop artists have become disconnected from their Black musical and African American heritage. Another reason is the deep secularization of our culture. People no longer understand what artists of past generations instinctively knew: that music was created as a tool of worship, even when the artists themselves weren’t religious.

That basic understanding—that music was meant to point people toward something greater than themselves—has largely been lost. Today, most lyrics boast about how great the artist is as an individual, pointing listeners toward things that will fade as quickly as the artist’s song and time on this earth. Because of that, no one feels the power or the necessity of listening to hiphop records that lack a divine message or purpose.

While the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef was remarkable for reigniting lyricism and reminding people of hiphop’s power and potential, it also exposed something darker. Mainstream audiences would rather watch two Black men battle each other than see them unite to confront the real enemy. As much as I enjoyed the lyrical sparring, I’m not naïve to what most observers miss.

The truth is, the Christian music industry is just a smaller, rebranded copy of the mainstream one. It too promotes superficiality—elevating artists who lack substance and biblical depth—while silencing those who embrace the prophetic nature of music and its purpose as worship. Not to mention, the Christian industry’s deeply ingrained anti-Blackness—rewarding those who conform to white musical standards while erasing African American lament and discouraging authentic Black musical expression.

In hindsight, I’ve even begun to question whether Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl appearance was the victory we once celebrated. Or a sobering reminder that prophetic and divine hiphop has become so commercialized that it’s no longer distinct. In some ways, I believe the latter is true. While I’m still unsure whether Kendrick’s mainstream success represents a clear win or loss for hiphop, I am sure of this: the artist who truly serves as the voice of the voiceless…the one who speaks the truth of the oppressed—rarely reaches that level of recognition during their career. They are often unappreciated in their lifetime, especially by the same fans who unknowingly contribute to the very systems their music critiques.

Either we’ve lost the element of hiphop that once used coded language to communicate truths to our people without being fully understood by outsiders, or our people have lost the ability to decode those messages altogether. In the first case, we’ve done our job too well. In the second, we’ve lost our sense of identity. My observation is that both are true today.

Unfortunately, hiphop’s decline is tied to two realities: the lack of honest artists willing to use their prophetic gift to speak divine truth, and the loss of discernment among listeners who no longer recognize the depth and purpose of coded expression. As a music historian and someone who has devoted his life to studying artists across genres and teaching others to build with awareness of the past as they shape the future, I can’t ignore what I see.

Many of my fellow Christian artists know how openly I’ve resisted the kind of success that demands conformity to whitewashed, anti-Black standards in exchange for visibility. But while that stance can make the Christian music space feel lonely, it now seems the mainstream music space feels empty too.

Only time will tell who remains committed to being the voice of the people: those willing to sacrifice material gain and popularity to speak the truth. Yet there is still good news. Whenever there is a gap, (as there is now in hiphop and music at large), it means the culture is ripe for its next prophetic voice. One who will stand for the voiceless, be embraced first by the streets and communities they serve, and ultimately face the test of rejecting the temptations of the mainstream industry that seeks to commodify their calling.