Hip-Hop Made Up 71 Percent Of Top 10 Hits In Third Quarter Of 2018

Hip-Hop’s influence reigns supreme.

According to a new report by Hit Songs Deconstructed, Hip-Hop dominated this year’s charts so much so that 71 percent of all Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 Songs chart betwen July and September of 2018 were tracks primarily belonging to the genre. It more than doubles the figure of 35 percent that it held last year during the same period of time. It also marks a significant jump from the 55 percent that it boasted in the first half of 2018.

All the while, the report details the inverse relationship that Hip-Hop and Pop seem to share as the latter’s influence continues to wane, only accounting for 14 percent of tracks in the Top 10 this past quarter. Within the last three years, the two genres have effectively swapped places. This year overall, Hip-Hop controlled 63 percent of all Top 10s in the Hot 100. It’s the highest figure for any genre since Pop held the crown in 2015 with 49 percent.

What’s even more impressive is that Hip-Hop influenced 93 percent of the Top 10s in the Hot 100 in Q3 of 2018. As Billboard points out: “An influence is a vocal or instrumental characteristic associated with a particular genre, time period or geographic location that helps shape the sound and vibe of a song,” Hit Songs Deconstructed co-founder Dave Penn says, ‘For example, rapped vocals could be used to impart a hip-hop vibe in a song outside the hip-hop genre.'”