Music Intelligence Report 2026

GENRE BREAKING

In October 2025, Billboard reported that there wasn’t a single rap song in the Top 40, a first since 1990. But does this fact herald the decline of hip-hop’s influence? Far from it.  

Anecdotally, you can hear hip-hop’s influence on everything from lyrical delivery to production to aesthetics, across genres ranging from pop to country to indie to electronic music.

Examining hip-hop through the lens of SoundCloud scenes reveals another reality. More than just influencing other genres, hip-hop itself is rapidly evolving, exploring entirely new sonic palettes and lyrical styles.

Hip-hop continues to draw on diverse sounds

Pushing traditional genre boundaries is a proud custom on SoundCloud, and socially-driven scenes on the platform are where sounds are shattered and reformed.

Lil Uzi Vert

Lil Uzi Vert · Ps & Qs [Produced By Don Cannon]

Since SoundCloud’s earliest days, hip-hop scenes have been some of the most innovative on the platform, drawing from the rich, diverse sounds and communities around them. From the foundations and evolution of “Cloud rap,” built by luminaries like Lil B and Lil Uzi Vert, to the new eras of jerk and the UK underground, as led by Xaviersobased and fakemink respectively, artists on SoundCloud are always pushing hip-hop forward in ways that break the mold.
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fakemink

fakemink · Shih Tzu (Feat XavierSoBased)

Guitar-centric music and hip-hop go together

The boundary pushing is increasingly palpable in hip-hop production, which has become more experimental as artists pull ideas from other genres. Leading up to and into the early 2020s, trendsetter Playboi Carti and his peers took the dark, alt-metal ambiance of bands like Deftones and threw it in the mix with 808s and distorted EDM. This became the prototype for rage rap. As sounds and scenes intertwine, it’s opened avenues for collaboration, both in the studio and on stage, like with Cloud rap pioneer Denzel Curry opening for Deftones on their upcoming European tour.

Playboi Carti

playboicarti · Stop Breathing

OVERTONIGHT
YUKE
BUNII
AETER

KUSHBABYKEYS
IMSG
CRAYON
YIRU
SPHYNX

Now, hip-hop is drawing on alternative rock

More recently, we’ve seen another unlikely offshoot. Some previously hip-hop-centric communities have embraced pop punk and alternative rock. This new wave of self-described “indie” artists — represented by witty and aeter — are releasing EPs where bedroom indie folk and alternative trap tracks sit side by side. And the scene has leaned further and further into guitar-driven music over time. At the beginning of 2024, genre-tagging tech labeled 25% of these hip-hop-influenced indie uploads as folk, indie, or rock. In the second half of 2025, that share was up to 34% on average.

witty

witty · witty

on SoundCloud, 57% of Deftones listeners have hip-hop as their most-listened genre.

electronic and ambient
are in the mix too

Elsewhere, in the soaring world of underground UK rap, artists like fakemink are embracing hazy dance-like electronic production, pushing lead vocals into the background and layering atmospheric textures on top. Some artists are producers themselves, releasing ambient-rich tracks and instrumentals. As a result, tagging tools mark more than a third of tracks in the scene as electronic. To hear how big a departure this is, compare last year’s most-streamed SoundCloud track — YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s “Shot Callin” — with fakemink’s top track, “Easter Pink.” One is trap-influenced hip hop; the other is indie-electro with British-accented rap.

Both underground UK rap and the new indie wave have grown at a dizzying pace. Streams of both have increased by more than 4.5x over the past two years among a listenership that is 85% Gen Z.

fakemink - “Music And Me (Prod OK)”

fakemink · Music And Me (Prod OK)

PERCENTAGE OF “Eclectic New indie” SCENE TRACKS CLASSIFIED AS “INDIE”, “ROCK”, or “FOLK”

What’s the impact
on listener habits?

As artists push boundaries, fans are similarly expanding their genre comfort zones. The share of listening that the average fan spends with their top genre has inched downwards, too. Since 2019, listeners now spend 4% less time with their most-listened genre, as they consume a broader range of music.

This has helped lead to some fault-line-rumbling shifts in consumption. Electronic music has been the fastest growing genre for several years running, while country and rock are on multi-year runs as well.

This behavior is fueled by social discovery. SoundCloud’s social networking architecture deliberately encourages this exploration, and the effect is potent. When a listener plays a track from another user’s Liked By playlist, they're three times more likely to play music outside their most-listened genre and they are more four times more likely to like, repost or comment on that track themselves.

Listeners who play a track in another user’s Liked By playlist are over 3 times more likely to like, repost, or comment on the track themselves.

So, where’s the hip-hop? It’s evolved into new sounds and scenes. It’s gone punk, it’s pulled from indie, it’s going electronic. And that evolution is set to accelerate in 2026.