‘Billboard Unfiltered’: Rod Wave, GloRilla, the State of Hip-Hop Journalism & BET Hip-Hop Awards

The calendar turned to the fourth quarter and hip-hop is working overtime before the buzzer sounds on 2024. With Rod Wave and GloRilla making their presence felt in the Billboard 200’s top five along with projects on the way from Tyler, The Creator and Lil Uzi Vert, it’s a busy time in the rap world.

Billboard Unfiltered is back with a new episode breaking down all of the hip-hop and R&B-related chart drama along with plenty of other topics. It’s a full house with all four of the fellas in the mix on Friday (Oct. 25).

“It’s been an interesting year for female rappers. You didn’t know what she was gonna do,” Deputy Director, Editorial Damien Scott said. “She could’ve done 10,000 or did what she did.”

Glo earned the top debut sales week of any female rapper all 2024 with 69,000 total album units, which put GLORIOUS at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.

“I don’t know if people necessarily saw this coming,” Senior Charts & Data Analyst Trevor Anderson said. “We knew the buzz was really strong, but that doesn’t always turn into the full support… To see what she did showing up with almost 70,000 for the week. A year ago, people were like, ‘Oh it’s a wrap.'”

He continued: “Glo seems to have a huge runway to play with. Especially at a time it’s kinda a surprise we had so many people dropping in the same year… For Glo to come through in [quarter] four and shut that conversation down, I don’t know if a lot of people would’ve had that at the top of the year on the bingo card.”

Deputy Director R&B/Hip-Hop Carl Lamarre took the chance to defend himself after receiving backlash for his viral “big three” picks on social media. On a previous episode Lamarre went with Rod Wave, Travis Scott and Playboi Carti to round out his new “big three.”

“Statistically am I wrong? [Rod Wave’s] had seven top 10s the last five years. The brother’s currently on an arena tour for the third consecutive year,” he said. “How many cats are doing back to back to back arena tours. But they’re not hearing he’s a rapper. What is rap today?”

The 2024 BET Hip Hop Awards went down last week and Staff Writer Kyle Denis wonders about the purpose of the Hip Hop Awards having so much overlap with the BET Awards.

“I think it’s confusing to some viewers what the purpose of the Hip Hop Awards are given how hip-hop-centric the main BET Awards are,” he stated. “Why do we need to circle back four or five months later for another hip-hop show… It kinda feels like the same show twice.”

respected journalists want artists to do interviews with them (makes sense) but heres the issue….

1. most journalists don’t have their own platform so that somewhat forces the artist to fund and produce the interview themselves (I’ve done it cuz I see the value in it but I…

— SANTIAGO (@russdiemon) October 12, 2024

Last week, Russ and Top Dawg Entertainment president Terrence “Punch” Henderson went viral with their critiques of hip-hop journalism, which led to plenty of heated debates on social media about the state of the industry.

“Is it in a bad place? It’s not in the best place,” Scott stated regarding journalism. “It’s not as good as it was 20 years ago, but it’s not all doom and gloom. I’ll say it’s not that bad.”

Denis vehemently pushed back against Punch labeling “most” of hip-hop journalists as “trash.” “You can not enter the space talking about most of you guys are trash and expect people to engage with you in good faith,” he said. “All of the hip-hop journalists I’ve met and encountered have been some of the smartest people I’ve ever spoken to. I would never call them trash.”

Watch the full episode above.