Can you believe it? Hip-hop is officially in year three of the COVID era. At the start of 2020, the pandemic put a lot of music on hold that should have been released. It was great to see a lot of rookies take advantage of the extra time to shine, but most vets sat back and considered the period an off-season. Luckily, despite new variants constantly popping up just as often as Ty Dolla $ign features, 2021 has evened things out with pantheons like Drake, Kanye West, J. Cole, Young Thug and others offering outstanding music packs to their fans. And this momentum, at all levels, should remain stable in 2022.

Comeback season is on the calendar for a number of artists. Four years have passed since A$AP Rocky released his experimental junior album Test. Last summer, taking a break from talking about his relationship with Rihanna and the drip in his closet, Rocky confirmed that his next effort, All smiles, is “90 percent” done. Let’s keep faith high and hope it comes sooner rather than later. Speculations aside, Rae Sremmurd ends their drought with the fourth installation of SremmLife. Earlier this year, Swae Lee confirmed on Instagram that the 2018 follow-up SremmLife3 will arrive before march. Blows are to be expected, as usual.

Although there have been some significant absences during recent trips around the sun, the rap game has been in good hands. One person in possession is Lil Baby, who despite only tag team trap ballads with Lil Durk in 2021, hit his peers around the corner without coming off a solo project. In November he tweeted, “New Everything Otw” and stamped it with a raising hand emoji. Megan Thee Stallion is another finger spinner. Even with a project full of loosies and previously recorded material, 2021 Something for the hotties still reigned supreme. Meg told Zane Lowe that SFTH was nothing but a simple appetizer, as she pledged to bless her supporters with a brand new album this year.

Elsewhere, Ye prepares to fall 2 and his GOOD Music right-hand man, Pusha-T, has also already started the album rollout for his new joint (Cue the cocaine covered pics). Travis Scott’s Utopia could finally see the light of day, as he changed his GI bio to take on the name of the effort. Future announced last year that there was actually a Hndrxx 2 that he was saving for 2022. Flow gods Ski Mask The Slump God and JID have bar bombs in the barrel. And of course, Kendrick Lamar has quite a royal rumble ahead of him if he decides to drop out and reclaim his spot at the top. The list is really long. You can go ahead and take a look at the most anticipated hip-hop albums of 2022 below.—Upper Kemet