Future The Overlooked Rap MVP of 2024

In the hip-hop community, 2024 was deemed the year of Kendrick Lamar by media outlets and fans. Despite anyone’s personal grievances, Kendrick saw his biggest streaming year in 2024 achieving over 9 billion streams after defeating Drake in a rap battle that is still shaking the game to this day. However, another rapper had an equally great if not better year than the big stepper but was overlooked, Future. The Atlanta native had a massive 2024 but received nowhere near the credit he deserved. In this article, I will break down how Future had the biggest year in his rap career and how he was overshadowed by a game that values drama over statistics.

Future had the numbers 

Though Kendrick saw his biggest year as previously stated, Future did as well. What’s surprising is that Future had just as many streams as the “hip-hop artist of the year” without the drama. That’s right! Future also surpassed 9 billion streams last year and didn’t need any antics to do so. On top of that, Future holds the title of the most streamed hip-hop album of 2024 with “We Don’t Trust You.” The single “Like That” will go down in history as the first stone thrown in a war that, for a time, encompassed most of the biggest names in hip-hop. 

Yes, there was drama attached to the album but Kendrick stole the show with direct shots at two-thirds of the big three. Despite that, Pluto continued his rampage with just music. 

Future did something no rapper has ever done

With all the fuss over “The Beef” there was something important that the rap culture missed or just didn’t mention. Future became the ONLY rapper to chart three number-one albums in the same calendar year with “We Don’t Trust You,” “We Still Don’t Trust You,” and “Mixtape Pluto.” This feat put him in the category of The Beatles and the cast of Glee as the only artist in the last 60 years to accomplish this. He now sits at 5th all-time with 11 number-one albums. As far as rappers go he sits behind only Drake and Jay-Z.

If that wasn’t enough, last year the Solo rapper also became the most charted male artist in a year with an astonishing 49 records.

Why we missed it

With these statistics, it’s easy to see that Future is a dominant force in the rap game. He has seen an increase in streams consistently since 2019. A statistic that not even the most talked about rappers can boast. Despite all of this, Spotify awarded Kendrick Lamar the “Rapper of the Year” award despite not having an album out at the time while Future was enjoying a 3-peat. Media outlets and social media savants have prioritized shock value over share value. 

It’s time to get back to what’s real

Everyone who puts in the work deserves their moment and recognition. Yes, Lamar rocked the world with a controversial single but what else is there? Yes, Drake was the most streamed rap artist every month of 2024 but the majority of those streams were obtained from past projects. As far as rappers go, Future was the most consistent scorer, and his value in the game only rises each year. When will Pluto get his flowers? 

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