We asked some of our favorite culture creators to give us their best-of lists for 2025; the rest of James Gunn’s top 50 alternative rap songs of the year can be found right here.
Easily my favorite year in alternative hip-hop since the early aughts, when MF DOOM, Louis Logic, CunninLynguists, Atmosphere, Aceyalone, OutKast, Aesop Rock, and many more were releasing one banging track after the next and changing the face of what hip-hop could be. That said, I don’t know if there’s ever been such a sheer volume of great work out there, which made it difficult to restrict this list to only ten tracks. The folks at GQ asked if I could put the songs in order, which, of course, is specific to the day, hour, and minute of me making this list. That said, my Top Three are pretty solidly my Top Three Hip Hop songs of this year, as well as being solidly in my Top Ten of all tracks this year. —JG
My Top Ten Favorite Alternative Hip Hop Tracks of 2025 (or, more specifically, of Thursday, Dec 11, 2025, at 9:53 AM)
1. Ghais Guevara, “The Old Guard Is Dead”
2. LaRussell, Homage Simon, Michael Prince, Shante, ClayDough, Tietta, MALACHI, Tiione, ““10s, 20s, 50s, 100s”/“Test Ya Nuts”/“Once Upon a Time”/“WHAT WE DOIN!?”” (Live on NPR Tiny Desk)
3. Clipse feat. John Legend & Voices of Fire, “The Birds Don’t Sing”
4. Backxwash, “Wake Up”
5. McKinley Dixon, “Run, Run, Run Pt. II”
6. LaRussell x Lil Jon, “I Got Flavor!”
7. Aesop Rock, “Roadwork Rappin’”
8. KNEECAP feat. Mozey, “THE RECAP”
9. Little Simz, “Free”
10. Open Mike Eagle, “woke up knowing everything”
To check out the rest of James Gunn’s top 50 hip-hop songs of 2025, click here.
