Complex's 20 Best Rappers in Their 20s, Ranked by How Much You Actually Stream Them

We just released its annual list of the best rappers in their 20s, and YoungBoy Never Broke Again took the top spot.

That’s no surprise: we named him the best rapper alive last year. Rod Wave, Yeat, Doechii, GloRilla, Pooh Shiesty, che and more round out the 20-artist list.

Our ranking weighed the quality of each artist’s music, their commercial impact and their influence on the scene. But we also wanted to see how our picks stack up against what listeners are actually playing. So we asked Luminate for two numbers for each artist: their on-demand audio streams in the U.S. from Jan. 1 through Oct. 2026, and the same figure globally. On-demand audio streams count plays across major streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music, making them a direct measure of how often fans are pressing play.

The results are striking, if not surprising: YoungBoy is in a league of his own.

The Baton Rouge rapper has racked up 5.40 billion U.S. on-demand audio streams so far in 2026. That’s more than the next three names combined: Rod Wave (2.57 billion), BigXthaPlug (1.68 billion) and Yeat (1.03 billion).

Put another way, YoungBoy accounts for roughly 30 percent of the 17.8 billion streams generated by all 20 artists. Rod Wave sits a distant second with less than half of YoungBoy’s total, and only four rappers in the group cleared the billion-stream mark this year.

GloRilla is the most-streamed woman in the group, ranking seventh overall with 729 million streams. She’s one of five women among the 20, alongside Latto (571 million), Sexyy Red (471 million), Doechii (399 million) and Samara Cyn (17. million).

There’s a notable split between Opium labelmates, too. Ken Carson’s 745 million streams 729 million are more than double Destroy Lonely’s 361 million, which puts Lonely 15th.

Here’s the full U.S. ranking:

Top 20 by US streams

1. YoungBoy Never Broke Again, 5.40 billion
2. Rod Wave, 2.57 billion
3. BigXthaPlug, 1.68 billion
4. Yeat, 1.03 billion
5. Pooh Shiesty, 820 million
6. Ken Carson, 745 million
7. GloRilla, 729 million
8. BossMan DLow, 645 million
9. Baby Keem, 633 million
10. Latto, 571 million
11. Loe Shimmy, 530 million
12. Lil Yachty, 483 million
13. Sexyy Red, 471 million
14. Doechii, 398 million
15. Destroy Lonely, 361 million
16. Dave, 254 million
17. che, 238 million
18. Nino Paid, 214 million
19. Samara Cyn, 17 million
20. Jim Legxacy, 11 million

Top 20 by Global streams

Globally, the order doesn’t shift much. The biggest mover is Dave: the London rapper climbs from 16 in the US to fifth worldwide with 2 billion streams. YoungBoy still leads with 6.29 billion streas.

Here’s the full global ranking:

1. YoungBoy Never Broke Again, 6.29 billion
2. Rod Wave, 2.89 billion
3. BigXthaPlug, 2.19 billion
4. Yeat, 2.02 billion
5. Dave, 2.01 billion
6. Ken Carson, 1.19 billion
7. Baby Keem, 1.09 billion
8. Doechii, 1.06 billion
9. Pooh Shiesty, 962 million
10. GloRilla, 912 million
11. BossMan DLow, 724 million
12. Latto, 718 million
13. Lil Yachty, 691 million
14. Sexyy Red, 672 million
15. Loe Shimmy, 655 million
16. Destroy Lonely, 565 million
17. che, 356 million
18. Nino Paid, 239 million
19. Jim Legxacy, 69 million
20. Samara Cyn, 33.3 million