By Daniel Paiz
The 14th Annual Cypher Seven article is here, as Cypher Sessions selects 2025’s Seven Best Hip Hop albums and more. 2025 had a wide variety of sounds and projects out this year, and the top seven reflects this eclectic range. Popularity wasn’t as impactful as it was in 2024, as folks found their niches and dug in.
Criteria for deciding what qualified for 2025
Grading albums was streamlined in 2023, and that same timeframe was used again this year. Albums released between December 1st, 2024, and November 30th, 2025, were eligible for consideration. Every album released December 1st, 2025, and later is eligible for 2026.
Figuring out the Seven Best Albums of 2025 required patience. Album lengths varied widely, but many artists found a sweet spot around 30 minutes or so. Things are still very free flowing when it comes to releasing a body of music. Albums this year focused more on stream of consciousness and sharing viewpoints in singles, with less emphasis on building a conceptual body of work. Putting out music has become a bit of race due to the volume out there, as well as combating AI’s “music”.
A sonic spectrum of ideas and beats across the board make up the seven chosen before you. The Honorable Mentions were also in the mix but just missed out. Music from across the world and across several languages again were graded this year.
In addition to the Seven Best and Honorable Mentions selections, other awards are again paused for this year (including best soundtracks/Hip-Hop adjacent projects). There’s so much fluctuation that it’s really hard to keep up with all of it. This year, the awards consist of the Seven Best, the Honorable Mentions, and the Capital Steez Award (read that section for more info on the name). For your enjoyment (and ours), the Cypher Seven best of 2025 follows below.
OUR SEVEN BEST ALBUMS OF 2025 ARE:
7. Princess Nokia: Girls
Speaking one’s experiences and their truth with such power is the epitome of rhyming. Nokia delivers bars and testimony throughout this album. Tracks like “Blue Velvet” and “Medusa” are standouts amongst a wide range of really solid songs. The ending of this album with “Phoebe Philo” and “ArtStar” cemented this emcee’s place in the top seven. This rhymer should have folks on notice, and like all good emcees, should have everyone else in the rap game revisiting their notebooks.
6. Atmosphere: Jestures
Jestures is an appropriate name for this project. Ant’s productions on this tape helps provide quite an array of sounds and moods. Slug plays the self-appointed jester, rhyming to entertain folks while also requiring fan reactions and applause. It’s also a sincere gesture of sorts from the group to share their creative ideas and sounds. There is something for everyone in this ambitious 26-track project.
Music both in the forms of listening to it and creating it is therapy, and these guys are the unofficial therapists many choose to sit with as life gasps on (for now).
5. Joey Badass: Lonely At The Top
This album is a combination of reflection with pushing through life’s ups and downs. There’s a realization, an understanding of sorts that one has to accept where they presently are in life; once one does this, only then can they really move forward. While “Still” is the best track on the project, the track before it entitled “Speedin’ Through The Rain” has the top rhyme of the album: “spinned the writer’s block like a game of Tetris”. That summarizes life’s challenges succinctly, as one must shift and maneuver to keep going.
4. Clipse: Let God Sort Em Out
Malice and Pusha T have returned, and they’ve taken no prisoners on this resurrection tour. Playing for American Pope Leo XII at the Vatican, performing at musical festivals and awards shows, this dynamic duo took the Hip-Hop world by storm with this new project. This sounds like it was crafted right after Hell Hath No Fury, but that’s untrue.
“Birds Don’t Sing” and “Chains & Whips” catapult listeners into a damn good project that takes your ears hostage. These guys worked with Pharell and added another chapter to their impressive legacy. It was genuinely surprising that other albums scored higher than this one.
3. Brother Ali & Ant: Satisfied Soul
This album was the biggest surprise when it came to scoring so high. This isn’t meant to insult Brother Ali or Ant, because both are supremely talented and satisfy ears across the world. The production of Ant is criminally slept on, and for some reason Brother Ali isn’t given his dues for his rhymes and lines. This project delivered a plethora of thoughtful tunes, and embraced listeners from start to finish. “Handwriting” is the biggest hidden gem amongst a tape full of jewels.
2. Aesop Rock: Black Hole Superette
Aesop has outdone himself sonically, as each track has a musical landscape providing just the right setting for each song. The different worlds that arise out of these songs are not faraway places in the cosmos, but rather different realities each person encounters in daily interactions.
Few artists deliver such layered rhymes along with such a varied spectrum of beats. Aesop Rock delivers in both areas quite well. When a project sounds better the more you listen to it over time, you’ve found something worthwhile revisiting.
1. De La Soul: Cabin In The Sky
It’s hard to make an album that honors a member who has passed away and does so exploring such a wide array of topics. To also include that artist in the project in such a present way despite their passing…that’s impressively heartfelt. Keeping someone alive in this manner while simultaneously delivering a wholly fulfilling album as well is no small task. The title track is a favorite listen, as it encapsulates the motif of the album.
The skits are massively impactful in a humorously good-natured way. Celebrating Dave is celebrating his impact on all of the artists on this album, and the listeners as well. Dave will always be here, man.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
- Preservation & Gabe ‘Nandez – Sortilège
- Chance the Rapper – Star Line
- Cannibal Ox – Aireplane
Reflection, dealing with loss, and sharing one’s journey were central aspects of Hip-Hop this year. Vulnerability is still part of what’s listed above but was less central than in previous years. Serving those who needed humbling and some attitude adjustments also surfaced more this year as well. Some projects didn’t make this list because either they lacked focus, or their message was lacking.
As album grading unfolded, the best seven listed above kept trading spots. There was more separation from the rest of the field this year compared to previous years, which was genuinely surprising. It’s been several years since that has happened.
Grading began in early December and finally concluded a couple of days before 2026. Unfortunately, 2025 didn’t have the same success for women rapping as 2024 did (Ana Tijoux and Rapsody both made Best Seven in ’24). However, Princess Nokia’s album stood out quite a bit, and the Girls rapper undoubtedly will make lists and be a flagbearer for Hip Hop for the foreseeable future.
Thankfully, all of the projects listed give you something different to jam.
THE CAPITAL STEEZ AWARD (OR THE ARTIST WE WISHED WE KNEW MORE ABOUT AWARD):
Princess Nokia
[Capital Steez was a member of Pro Era and had a number of unique mixtapes. Steez’s life sadly ended years ago, and this award is given to artists who are offering something dope, unique, and/or necessary to the masses today.]
This award has varied between artists who are newer and under the radar, and artists who have been around but slept on for some reason. Princess Nokia is in the latter camp, as the New York emcee has explored several themes throughout her career. Her latest album, Girls, dives into the realities of girlhood and womanhood in this patriarchal society.
There might be some images and rhymes that ruffle a few feathers, but Nokia embodies what the core of Hip-Hop is: speaking out against what needs to be changed. What makes it even more impactful is centering and focusing on women; this helps to decenter men and avoids the often glossing over or ignoring of testimonies and stories women are sharing. Hip-Hop is like the rest of America and the world over when it comes to operating from a patriarchal core. When artists such as Princess Nokia, Rapsody, Sa-Roc, Stella Standingbear and more share their experiences and perspectives, it helps to tackle current systems while representing said experiences.
That concludes the 14th Annual Cypher Seven: 2025’s Seven Best Hip-Hop albums and more. Thank you for reading this article, and for checking out Cypher Sessions. Whether you’ve been here since 2012 or just started reading, it is truly appreciated.
There’s no group of people or team putting this year-end article together. Instead, the author of this article is the one tweaking and reworking. Writing and editing and listening to albums takes time. Every time the above work is read and/or shared, this writer appreciates it. If you enjoy these artists, check out their work, and if you enjoy these words, please share them, comment, and get them to people you know.
Here’s to the close of 2025 and a bountiful start to 2026. It’s time to be better through consistency and community. Take care and keep reading.
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