Another year in Hip Hop has drawn to a close, and as the smoke of 2025 settles, it’s clear the culture keeps refining itself. Outside the glossy distractions of streaming-era celebrity and algorithm-fed trends, a different lineage continues to evolve: the school of craftsmanship, integrity, and respect for the art form’s foundation. At HHGA, that’s the world we chronicle. Ours is the universe of emcees and producers who still build albums like novels, not playlists; who treat verses as scripture and beats as sacred geometry.
This year, that tradition thrived. The veterans redefined longevity. The new vanguard built frameworks. Across our Top 60, the sound of 2025 told a story of maturation, experimentation, and restoration. From De La Soul’s brilliant late-career renaissance on Cabin In The Sky to billy woods’ incendiary GOLLIWOG, the underground’s pulse beat with purpose. Clipse sharpened their legend on Let God Sort Em Out; Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist pushed minimalist luxury to new heights on Alfredo 2; and Nas & DJ Premier reunited to prove that age, when paired with vision, can still summon magic. This was a year about mastery, perspective, and the art of distillation.
No one embodied that better than our two 2025 M.V.P.’s: The Alchemist and Nas. Each—through different crafts—anchored the year’s best music, commanding reverence without ever chasing relevance. Alchemist’s fingerprints were everywhere, his production quietly bending time, merging smoky loops with emotional weight across multiple projects. Nas, in turn, stood as Hip Hop’s curator and poet laureate—his pen sharper, his sense of legacy clearer, his Legends Has It vision reminding the culture that true icons evolve, not expire.
2025 belonged to those who treat Hip Hop like an unending craft. And as we crown its M.V.P.’s, we celebrate not just their output, but their devotion to the art that continues to define generations.
The Alchemist
Alan Daniel Maman grew up in Beverly Hills. First, he approached Hip Hop in the early 1990s as a rapper named Mudfoot, forming The Whooliganz alongside Scott Caan, whose early material drew local notice before he turned toward production. DJ Muggs soon brought him into the Soul Assassins collective, where his contributions to Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom taught him the art of layering samples into extended patterns that carry a track from start to finish.
When he relocated to New York in the late 1990s, his partnership with Mobb Deep on Murda Muzik solidified his signature sound, as heard in “The Realest,” where warped kicks support a faint piano line drawn from psychedelic rock records, soul vinyl, and snippets of film dialogue, all while drums land slightly off-center to sustain tension across the entire piece.
Over the following decades, Maman—known as The Alchemist—developed a catalog that reflects his deepening command of texture and repetition, beginning with Dilated Peoples’ 1st Infantry and its track “Hold You Down,” where horns gradually curl into a looping form that holds steady under the verses. Although he served as Eminem’s tour DJ in 2005, he directed his energy toward underground releases, including beat tapes like Israeli Salad that expose his process of chopping samples from aged vinyl and adding subtle layers of static to create depth.
Collaborations further revealed his adaptability, such as Covert Coup with Curren$y, where bass lines hum continuously at a low register while synths linger in the background, or Action Bronson’s Rare Chandeliers, which incorporates organ lines over hats that maintain a consistent pace throughout. Projects with Boldy James, including The Price of Tea in China and Bo Jackson, space drums thoughtfully for greater impact, while Roc Marciano’s The Elephant Man’s Bones employs quiet percussion alongside thin strings that weave through the arrangement. Larry June’s The Great Escape benefits from keys that catch the light and bass that glides smoothly under the delivery, and Armand Hammer’s Haram integrates industrial hums with sharp snares to form a dense backdrop—all unified by his persistent focus on grainy texture shaped through careful repetition.
That foundation guided his extraordinary output in 2025, when he completed seven full projects and contributed tracks to releases from a diverse array of artists, beginning in February with Life Is Beautiful alongside Larry June and 2 Chainz, an album where he handled every beat to blend warm, drifting keys under June’s voice while leaving room for guests like Curren$y, later expanded by a deluxe edition in August that added fresh material to prolong the sequence.
In May, his instrumental album Mixed Fruit Vol. 1: Pineapple Ginger unfolded across 15 tracks, with “The Sun Shines Thru” emerging from shore-like haze, “Madness” accumulating layers from funk sources, and “A Man Without a Country” resolving into slow fades, each relying solely on rhythm to carry the listener forward.
July saw the arrival of Alfredo 2 with Freddie Gibbs, a natural extension of their 2020 collaboration, this release came accompanied by Alfredo: The Movie, a short film shot in Japan that explores underworld themes in parallel with the music. The momentum continued into October with Goldfish, a 15-track effort shared with Hit-Boy, where The Alchemist shaped portions like “Show Me The Way” and “Celebration Moments” featuring Havoc. November brought Mercy with Armand Hammer under his complete production.
Beyond these, his influence appeared on billy woods’ GOLLIWOG through “Counterclockwise” incorporating uneven jazz placements, Evidence’s Unlearning Vol. 2 via “Memories,” “Define Success,” “Rain Every Season,” and “Laughing Last,” Mobb Deep’s posthumous Infinite on “Gunfire” and “Taj Mahal,” The High & Mighty’s Sound of Market with “Rose Bowl,” Fly Anakin’s “Corner Pocket,” Zelooperz’ “In the Wind,” Jay Worthy’s Once Upon a Time on “The Outcome,” Erykah Badu’s Abi & Alan in “Next to You,” and even the bootleg Rx Chemist with Rx Papi.
Taken together, Life Is Beautiful, Alfredo 2, Goldfish, and Mercy—alongside these widespread contributions—establish The Alchemist as 2025’s M.V.P., as he forges connections among street rappers, abstract stylists, and veteran voices through production that emphasizes breathing texture and deliberate space.
Now 47, his approach revolves around deep crate exploration, measured sample edits, and thoughtfully selected partnerships, allowing loops to evolve gradually and drums to settle into enduring patterns, a method that the year’s work sustains without alteration, with each component naturally advancing what comes next.
Nas
Nasir Jones grew up in the Queensbridge projects after early years in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, where the sounds of his father Olu Dara’s jazz work and the rising Hip Hop scene of the late 1980s shaped his early path. He left school in eighth grade to focus on rhymes, building skill through freestyle sessions and demo recordings that captured street life with direct detail.
Guest spots marked his arrival: at age 17, his verse on Main Source’s “Live at the Barbeque” from Breaking Atoms in 1991 opened with lines about street discipline and mental firepower, drawing notice from East Coast circles. The next year, his contribution to MC Serch’s “Back to the Grill” on Return of the Product layered survival themes with intricate schemes, linking him to Native Tongues voices and building expectation for his own material. That momentum led to Illmatic in 1994, produced by DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, Q-Tip, and others, where tracks like “N.Y. State of Mind,” “The World Is Yours,” and “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” mapped Queensbridge existence with cinematic focus over precise beats.
His catalog unfolded with steady adaptation over three decades. It Was Written in 1996 reached number one with tracks like “If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)” alongside Lauryn Hill, blending street narratives and wider appeal through production from Premier, Dr. Dre, and Trackmasters. Challenges followed in I Am… and Nastradamus of 1999, yet Stillmatic in 2001 reclaimed ground with “Ether” amid rivalry debates, while God’s Son in 2002 explored personal ground on songs honoring his mother. Street’s Disciple in 2004 addressed maturity, Hip Hop Is Dead in 2006 questioned trends, and Untitled in 2008 confronted identity. Distant Relatives with Damian Marley in 2010 crossed into reggae perspectives, Life Is Good in 2012 reflected on change with “Daughters,” and the 2020s Hit-Boy run—King’s Disease, its sequels, Magic series—delivered Grammy wins through boom-bap revival and sparse features, all released via Mass Appeal Records, which Nas co-founded in 2014 to support independent artistry free from major pressures.
Mass Appeal grew into a platform for legacy and innovation, starting with releases like Fashawn’s The Ecology and Bishop Nehru projects, then expanding to J Dilla tributes and international efforts. Nas’s own Nasir in 2018 served as a concise label moment. The label’s focus sharpened in 2025 with the “Legend Has It…” series, a seven-album initiative Nas curated to honor New York pioneers, announced in April and rolled out monthly: Slick Rick’s Victory in June, Raekwon’s The Emperor’s New Clothes in July, Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele 2 in August, Mobb Deep’s Infinite and Big L’s Harlem’s Finest: Return of the King in October, De La Soul’s Cabin in the Sky in November. Billboards, a Marvel comic tie-in, and Nas’s own appearances framed the effort as preservation through active creation, drawing from influences like Wu-Tang grit and Mobb Deep realism to bridge eras without retreat to past forms.
Nas deepened that role through standout guest verses across the series, including contributions to Infinite and Cabin in the Sky that wove his voice into the projects with measured insight. His presence elevated each release, connecting living artists and estates in a shared lineage. The year closed with Light-Years in December alongside DJ Premier, extending their history from “N.Y. State of Mind” and “Nas Is Like.” Tracks like “My Life Is Real” open over piano loops with reflections on endurance, “Git Ready” nods to early influences, “Pause Tapes” recalls origin experiments, “Writers” catalogs graffiti roots, “My Story Your Story” reunites with AZ, “Bouquet (To the Ladies)” lists women in Hip Hop history, “Junkie” frames craft as dependence, “Sons (Young Kings)” centers fatherhood, and “3rd Childhood” affirms consistency beyond age. Premier’s production—precise drums, jazz chops, scratches—holds lean space for Nas’s sharpened delivery on survival, legacy, and craft.
Through Mass Appeal’s “Legend Has It…” curation, guest integrations, and Light-Years, Nas defined 2025 as Hip Hop’s central figure. At 52, he channels decades of output into acts that sustain the form: selecting partners, guiding releases, and writing with focus on structure and reflection. The series restores without display, each album advancing through detail and intent. His work reminds the culture that leadership emerges from care for what lasts.