Hip-hop is going to be fine. Lately, fans have been going through an existential crisis over the state of the genre and culture. For the first time since February 1990, there are no rap songs in the Top 40 of Billboard’s Hot 100. On its face, this is alarming. For 35 years, rap has proven genuinely viable as a form of pop culture. Back in the 90s, it worked in conjunction with R&B as how people accessed Black culture.

Then, eventually, the pendulum switched. Hip-hop became the predominant form of pop culture. Sure, the seasons changed every once in a while, but artists like Drake or Future or Lil Wayne or Kanye West were good to keep rap in the foreground as new interests emerged. Now, after all these years, it can’t even crack the Top 40? Prophecies of a death like jazz and rock felt imm

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