The best rap songs of December 2025

Every month, The FADER's Vivian Medithi showcases all the standout rap songs from the past 30-ish days in one unranked list.

Recently, Lil Uzi Vert inked a new deal with Roc Nation Distribution and began releasing a steady stream of singles. “Relevant” is the best of the pack (“Chanel Boy” a close second), barreling forward without a second thought in the way all of Uzi’s best songs do. “Chanel drug, got a habit / I swear I could swag way harder,” they rap. They’re getting “white boy money” like La Liga striker Robert Lewandowski and swerving from toting Glocks in the trenches to linking with goths in the mosh pit. Uzi’s output in the last few years has been inconsistent at best and insipid at worst, but for the first time since Pluto x Baby Pluto, Uzi’s giving us hints they could recapture their peak.

Pooh Shiesty was released from federal prison in October but he’s already moving like he never left at all. As he boasts on his new single “FDO,” he’s the CEO and his crew’s top shooter; his watch has a watch and his chain has more chains than other rappers do; he’s done shopping in his hometown of Memphis and is instead buying new threads in London so he can change his outfit every eight hours. These details just scratch the surface of “FDO,” however. After spending so long locked away, Pooh Shiesty has plenty to get off his chest.

I’m as much a fan of Goxan’s signature car alarm 808s as anybody, but some of my favorite Lazer Dim songs are the quieter ones — relatively. “Hangover” still boasts a beefy bassline perfect for shuddering your car’s interior, but the XPWave beat rumbles rather than bludgeons, leaving plenty of space for listeners to get lost in Lazer’s staccato cadences. There’s a part where he switches up his flow and the slant rhymes start to feel like iambic meter: “Zaza got me geeked / cup got me lit the whole weekend, I'm trippin.” It’s all over in less than 90 seconds, but Lazer sounds like he could go another 10 minutes on this beat if he cared to.

Cincinnati rapper Pink Siifu soaks up musical styles like a sponge and boasts a Rolodex that would make any music listener weep. “JET.EBONY,” from his new album ONYX’!, taps hardnosed Atlanta rapper Woo Da Savage for a session of ASMR shit talking, rocking all-black outfits in blacked-out Tahoes over a roiling bass line. The pair deliver their stage-whispered bars so emphatically it’s hard to believe they’re all but mumbling. “If a n***a wanna take his shit, okay,” Siifu rolls his eyes, “tell me who do it like this? I’ll wait.”

Sk8star is part of Atlanta’s new generation of SoundCloud upstarts. “2 Sexy” first crossed my radar as a snippet on social media, and the official release doesn’t disappoint. His pinched melodies soar over a shimmering Nosaint beat, which welds ephemeral synths to a pounding 808. “I got hella cheeeeeeese, I count up that provolone / These fuck n***as green, send a bitch right to your home,” he keens. His falsetto flows could lodge just about any mundane phrase in your head thanks to his melodic instincts.

On the first half of this Harrison and Flea Diamonds-produced instrumental, Niontay and Earl Sweatshirt slip and slide over the beat like they might fall asleep in the booth. It’s on the song’s second half where things really kick into gear, driven by an icy switch that hews closer to Surf Gang’s signature sound. My favorite touch is when Niontay raps, “In and out, let the motor run / fold her lock the doors and blow the horn if you notice some;” a burst of MIDI brass cascades through the woozy, atmospheric proceedings like angelic trumpets.

Chow Lee will never tire of shooting his shot at beautiful women. On “GEN5!,” his flow is as lithe as ever but particularly vivid, tracing out ridiculous bachelor vignettes: “Her tears in the steak / her heart in the plate / I paid for the date then I told her to stay up.” Later, he’ll scowl, “these n****s wan’ wife all the eaters, they selfish, they tucking the talent.” Somehow, I doubt he’ll be entering 2026 with a resolution to settle down.