
We took a look at the top hip-hop artists by Spotify monthly listeners to see who’s currently reaching the largest audiences on the platform.
Drake sits comfortably at No. 1 with more than 94 million monthly listeners, over 21 million ahead of Eminem.
From there, the top becomes much tighter, with Eminem, Kanye West, Post Malone and Kendrick Lamar all sitting between roughly 68 million and 73 million listeners.
One of the clearest takeaways is the power of catalog. JAY-Z ranks No. 10 with 48.6 million monthly listeners despite not releasing a solo album since *4:44* in 2017.
50 Cent is No. 15 with nearly 45 million despite his last studio album arriving in 2014, while Flo Rida sits even higher at No. 13 with 45.8 million despite not releasing a full studio album since 2012.
Mac Miller is another striking example of catalog longevity. Nearly eight years after his passing, he still ranks among hip-hop’s Top 20 with more than 41 million monthly listeners.
Swae Lee offers a different lesson. He ranks No. 9 with 49.5 million monthly listeners despite having only one solo studio album. A major part of his Spotify footprint comes through collaborations, including “Sunflower” with Post Malone, French Montana’s “Unforgettable,” and “Close to Me” with Ellie Goulding and Diplo.
It’s a reminder that monthly listeners can reflect the reach of an artist’s collaboration network as much as their solo catalog.
The depth of hip-hop’s streaming audience also stands out when compared with our electronic ranking. 21 Savage is No. 20 and still has 40.7 million monthly listeners, a number that would place him around No. 10 on the electronic list.
Taken together, the ranking shows several different paths to streaming scale: new releases, massive catalogs, crossover records and strategic collaborations can all keep an artist in front of tens of millions of listeners each month.