The Best Verses of 2017

2017 was a very good year for rap music. We were reminded by vets like Jay-Z and Black Thought that they're still immortal, watched their successors, like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole, prove they're here to stay, and saw up-and-comers like Kevin Abstract claim their seat at the table. This year's list of best rap verses features the young, the old, the new, the underground, and a guy that's known for making R&B, culminating in the 20 verses that stood out to us the most. We always pick a rap verse of the month, yet we felt like we needed to leave some of those out for superior bars. These are the 20 Best Rap Verses of 2017.

Verse: 2

Best line: "A millionaire, silly cause how many really get there?/I mean, how many niggas is Jeezy?/Y'all make this shit sound so easy"

Cole's verse on here was so hard, Kendrick was like, "Nah, I ain't rappin' on this, you got it." And that's a fact as far as I'm concerned. Cole had some things to get off his chest and he let 'em go with fervor. We need Jermaine features like this more often. —Angel Diaz

Verse: 1

Best line: "They don't know they got to be faster than me to get to me/No one's done it successfully"

“Stylin though.” A simple and catchy opening, the sort of line Drake excels at. The casual confidence in those two words is appealing; if you saw it on the rack you’d want to try it on—it’s plain, but you think you’d look great in it. Then back home, you find it doesn’t work as well as you wanted.

Relatability is overrated beyonds its ability to lure the listener in. It doesn’t keep butts in seats. At this point, is anyone still listening to Drake because they think their life is like his, that their struggles are similar? It’s the ghost of a feeling you occasionally glimpse but at this point we’re here for the Drake show, for his logo splashed on the sound a la mode and the rare peek behind the curtain at what his true life. That’s what “Do Not Disturb” gives you. “Stylin though/Dissin' but got pictures with me smilin though.” The line is a revolving door—you think you’re in only to be spun back out to the sidewalk to spectate. He’s very good at what he does, you should pay attention. Wait for the summary. —Ross Scarano

Verse: 3

Best line: "Growing up, I was a running back/You never made me ran once (goddamn)/I got shot, sweat started running/That shit was red like Hunt (ketchup)"

The Young Thug that emerges about halfway into “Sacrifices,” the demure posse cut on Drake’s More Life, is one we haven’t seen before. Thug’s rapping is typically elemental, it defies categorization; explaining what Thug rapping sounds like describing the weather. On “Sacrifices,” though, Thug sounds different. Sober, surgically precise storytelling. It’s such a different flow than what fans are used to hearing that it’s tough to capture how strikingly weird the language is before Thug explodes into a Technicolor croon—the Thug we’re used to, and are still thrilled by. He reins it in, later, capitalizing this new, darting rapping with his inextricably melody-laced, throaty delivery. The end result is formless impressionism, a completely new delivery from a new breed of rapper that works about as well as it sounds. It’s a triumph but, because it’s Thug, it’s impossible to say if we’ll ever hear a verse quite like it ever again. —Brendan Klinkenberg

Verse: 1

Best line: "Because if Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg could be servin' life/While I grew up without a father and die in a gunfight"

Just when you think you've seen all of K-Dot's tricks, know all of the major tentpoles of his story, this motherfucker goes and ends an already impressive album by putting his entire life into a Sliding Doors, cosmic context via the intertwined biographies of the two most important men in his life. A grand destiny fulfilled that could've easily been another banal and wasted life tossed about by the caprices of cause and effect. A tale this cinematic and unbelievably true needs John Williams on the score—9th Wonder provided the web and Kenny spun it like he was Homer delivering a myth from the heavens. Best verse on the best album of the year. —Frazier Tharpe