24 Songs I Loved From '25
(From North Carolina, obviously.)
It was only natural that after a six-year hiatus, our 2024 roundup might go a bit over the top. Split into three parts, each entry had a 2-3 paragraph writeup from yours truly, plus a supplemental note from an esteemed writer or musician friend—then an Honorable Mention section tacked on for good measure, because I obviously don't know when to stop.
This year, we're changing a few things up. For one thing, we're biting off considerably less by focusing on songs only. Nothing against albums—in fact, I'm more of an album listener than anything—but how many lists, each prescribing 10-20 albums of 30-70 minutes each that you must listen to, have you seen in the past two weeks? How many can one truly absorb? I haven't even gotten all the way through rap journalism veteran (and friend of SE) Gary Suarez's list—and that's just one of them!
I also didn't call up any writer friends this time. Some of them are working on album reviews for the first Super Empty print magazine, and the rest probably have better things to do.
A few disclaimers are probably in order. This year's edition is called "24 Songs I Loved" and not "The Best 24 Songs" for a reason: I didn't hear even close to every song that came out, and there's plenty I didn't come back to because of the limits of time, rather than lack of merit. I listen to way more NC hip-hop than the average human, and yet I could still listen to more, so this is intended to be more personal than broadly authoritative. Still, these songs deserve recognition, and I hope placement on the lil' old SE list gets them some. So without further ado—here are 24 songs I loved in 2025. And thanks, as always, for reading. (Listen to the Apple playlist here.)
"Tell Me I'm The Only One" - Solomon Fox
Already unlikely to be mailed-in, given the long four years since its predecessor SOLOMON, in 2021, Solomon Fox's Sweettooth opens with a haymaker of a ballad anyway, just in case you weren't approaching the Durham/LA artist's work with the sufficient respect. Airy, vaguely ominous, and pulling a little bit of everything out of his multi-instrumentalist bag of tricks, "Tell Me I'm The Only One" emerges from the shadows like some sickly figure out of a horror movie, before building into a swirling tornado of doubts, bluster, insecurities, and trust issues. It's a perfect introduction to a musician whose virtuosity is made more human by his grinning appreciation for the irreverent and slightly-off-kilter at nearly every turn.
"Tradewinds" - Gauxstman
Simply put, the most player song, from the most player album, of the year (which we neglected to cover at length when it dropped, but thankfully the homie Tyler Bunzey explored fully in the pages of Queen City Nerve). Like much of the 28217 project it comes from, this one is best enjoyed at full blast on a subtropical highway in the drop-top convertible that, if you're reading this, you probably don't own. Still, when you're listening to the Gauxst, it almost feels like you do.
"Keep My Name Out Your Mouth (Demo)" - chlothegod
Half a year later and I'm still as taken by this seeming throwaway track from Fayetteville's chlothegod as I was when I first heard it in June, and found myself possessed to write not only about its subtle magnetism, but also the spiritual and IMO undeniable Britishness of it, too:
How can someone listen to this and not hear any number of seductively simple, similarly stripped-down past moments from the likes of Jorja Smith, Amy Winehouse, Adele, or even Alex Turner? For an artist who came up on R&B/hip-hop beats and now traffics in high-energy alt-rock as much as anything, it's a reminder that she's just as well off with only an electric guitar and her voice.
"don't panic" - sosocamo
Put this one first on the list for artists I never would've expected to make my end-of-year writeup—especially because, well, before this year I'd never heard of him. Neither had most people. But on the back of his breakout album NO SERVICE (with eye-popping streaming numbers that, like everything else associated with Spotify, I don't trust), the Apex native has become, if not a household name, then one of the most likely NC artists to make that leap in the years to come. Like much of its milieu, the ADHD-coded "don't panic" is mostly allergic to continuing a thought for longer than one sentence, but its lush, melodic stylings and twinkling iridescence are so thoroughly transfixing that one hardly minds.
"The Shake Off" - Tab One
Don't take the following as a suggestion that it's time for Tab One to decamp to the shuffleboard courts and 4 p.m. Blue Plate Specials of a hip-hop old folks home—the longtime Kooley High emcee is still fully capable of unleashing a blistering 16 when the moment calls for it. But few artistic evolutions have been more satisfying over recent years than his embrace of a meditative, semi-sung rap style that seems distinctly and unselfconsciously inspired by his real (read: no longer 20- or 30-something) life, rather than the youthful posturing that hip-hop sometimes demands. Devoid of pretense, his newest album has a title that's as simple as a statement of suburban morning routine: I'm Going For A Run. And for all the analogous connections that the album explicitly and implicitly seeks to draw between Tab's new favorite hobby and life itself, the shared motif is never better than on "The Shake Off," on which putting one foot in front of the other evokes not only literal running, nor just getting out of a rut, but also the unrelenting (and often, deeply rewarding) passage of time itself.
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"Mowgli" - Jooselord
It can feel sometimes like everyone in North Carolina knows Jooselord, and at this point, maybe even more people know his son Onyx, who was diagnosed with cancer late last year. We've seen them everywhere: at sporting events, on the evening news, riding in tricked-out Jeeps. It's one thing to witness such devotion; it's another to hear and viscerally feel it for yourself. That was the effect of "Mowgli," the stark, stripped-down final song of Joose's midyear Mentally I'm Here EP, on which he lays bare the confusion, sadness, and unyielding determination swirling around in his heart and mind. It's more than should fit into a single song, but Joose's gift for gut-punching brevity ("Hate life? N**** life hate me;" "tryna raise a man, but he gotta make it there first") forces it to anyhow, slowly building, line by line, into a sobering, unforgettable portrait of one man—one of the Triangle's best—going through an ordeal that no parent ever, ever should.
"30K" - leroy
Summer came earlier than usual this year when leroy (fka WELL$) dropped the ebullient, contagiously sunny "30K" in late May, which finds the Charlottean employing his trademark witticisms and smirking confidence to escape the relationship doghouse in ways that, truly, only a rapper can: "I did you dirty to a beautiful song/ don't get mad, baby, sing it along." (Extra credit, because I'm technically only doing one song per artist: "FREESTYLE001.")
“WHAT IF?” - Joshua Raw
It was the year of solo spelunking for the members of Charlotte alt-rap trio Biking With Francis, each of whom released an album of their own in 2025 following a highly auspicious 2024 as a group. Unsurprisingly, there’s not a dud in the bunch. And yet the song from the BWF universe that I couldn’t put down didn’t belong to any of them—rather, it’s this track from Joshua Raw’s pre-SUBURBIA demo EP, which hums with exuberance, calculated abandon, and, true to its open-ended title, a sense of tantalizing possibility.
"RIGHT HERE" - .zone & Sifi!
Lord knows what it'll take for .zone, Sifi!, and the whole Deviants brigade to get the attention they deserve, but "RIGHT HERE," from the recent album WHEN THE SKY OPENS, might be the kind of kick-in-the-door statement that could turn the tide. As usual, .zone's writing bursts at the seams with clever quips and turns of phrase, but it's the comparatively banal opening line—"Open the blinds, it's such a beautiful day in the 919"—that sets the tone, nodding at the rich lineage of Triangle hip-hop that some listeners may one day count them next to, and that others (including yours truly) already do.
"Menchies" - Yahliq
There was no shortage of head-turning lyrical moments to go around this year, but I don't think a single couplet got lodged in my brain quite like this one did, from Yahliq's Professor X-hosted mixtape, Days Before Disaster: "Give a fuck 'bout the white man's temper, heat on me, and I'm raisin the temperature/ Used to be three-fifths of a man, my people fought so I could be an integer." If you want to better understand the kind of guy who'd come up with something like that, listening to "Menchies" would be a good place to start. Listening to DBD in full would be even better.
"silent film" - MAVI
When AI crawlers go back to scrape up and regurgitate the official historical record of MAVI's 2025, a flawless string of high-profile collaborative releases—with Earl Sweatshirt, Smino, and Niontay—followed by the critically lauded mixtape The Pilot, will undoubtedly be the main story. But none of it was as immediately arresting, or had me reflexively hitting repeat more often, than "silent film," which first debuted as a COLORS performance last month. By now, there's been ample evidence that the 25-year-old's singularly knotty and tender narration could work atop anything. Over the rippling guitars and driving rock drums of "silent film," it feels like a revelation anyway.
"How Many?" - 9OFHEARTS
Packing big ideas into small spaces is sort of the modus operandi of Greensboro rapper 9OFHEARTS' 2025 EP TALMBOUT, which clocks in at just 18 minutes but still manages to touch on a bit of everything under the sun. Across the project, no song better conveys that sensibility—and the restless, searching mind of its creator—than "How Many?," a jarringly honest and vulnerable window into the frustrations, false idols, and faith-testing trials of the artistic journey.
"WORST OF WAYS" - $hake
Before 2025, I'd never heard $hake's name; in 2026 and beyond, I'll never not click when I see that he's dropped something new. Precocious wisdom, dictionary-defying delivery (see:"magicianIreallywaspullinthesetricksoutahat"), and a weary, unassuming confidence— the 24-year-old Wilmington emcee has it all and more, and I can't wait to hear what comes next.
"I-40 Soldier" - Trent Josiah & leroy
Pick your dancing-related meme: Ariel & Co. on the blacktop. Pixelated Winnie The Pooh doing his butt shimmy. Leonardo DiCaprio in Wolf Of Wall Street. The little kid in the nightclub. That's the mental space I was transported to the first time I heard "I-40 Soldier," and have been every time since (including just now, as I write this). Infectious enough to provoke a state trooper into a dance battle, the sometimes abrasive sensibilities of "I-40" ("how the fuck you got that gumption? you a bitch, do all that pumpin") are granted an almost G-rated sheen by the funky and futuristic backdrop laid beneath them—a time-honored recipe that Southern Rap acts, and their fans, have been enjoying for decades.
"taiwan" - professor payne ft. Sacredd919 & rohtwiq.
A trio of young talents from the Triangle's unsung but stellar abstract rap scene combine for a loopy, madcap romp involving mall walkers, "type" beats, shark fishing and more—a buoyant stream of consciousness that's plenty interesting to follow, but even more fun to get lost in.
"I'M GOOD" - Reuben Vincent & 9th Wonder ft. Marco Plus, Jalisa, DL Zene
Don't stop at the producer credit. On "I'M GOOD," it's not just 9th Wonder, but also Reuben Vincent's not-yet-legendary, just-as-capable contemporaries—ATL rapper Marco Plus, 919 singers DL Zene and Jalisa—whose involvement make this breezy, jazz guitar-laced ode to stoicism and resilience one of the best tracks on WELCOME HOME (and one of my favorites of Reuben's still-young career).
"JIMMY N JOHNNY" - Fetty P Franklin
Grand enough in its vision that it ultimately stretched across two tracks and two different music videos, Fetty P Franklin's cautionary tale of deceit, disloyalty and drug-dealing is a testament to the Charlotte yarn-spinner's plainspoken magnetism—and to the timeless satisfaction of old-school hip-hop storytelling.
"Was Hannin" - TiaCorine ft. Wiz Khalifa
Of Winston-Salem native TiaCorine's many gifts is her aptitude for songs that seem to traverse multiple eras of music all at the same time. For instance, and this is just a random, hypothetical example off the top of my head: combining a 2000s, pop-rap call-and-response chorus, a distinctly 2020s rap cadence, and the mid-2010s weed bars (and wheeze-laugh) of Wiz Khalifa, all on a single, irresistible track.
"Last Laugh" - eLZhi & Khrysis ft. Domo Genesis & Oh No
Part of the NC-to-Detroit duo's seven-years-later followup to Elzhi & Khrysis are Jericho Jackson, the production here lands like the ton of bricks that a Khrysis beat should, with a murderer's row of emcees taking the rest from there. A 10-ton beat and a few acidic verses isn't exactly rocket science, but every now and then something in the calculus lands just right, and you reach escape velocity anyway—like the haunted, just-askew quality on "Last Laugh" that kept me coming back throughout the year.
"open your heart" - CJ Monét
You can almost hear the crackling of a fireplace and the clinking of ice in a lowball glass in the background of "open your heart"—a song so warm and enveloping that it momentarily makes the rest of the world melt away. In the wrong hands, sweet-but-straightforward ballad lines like "fall into me, I will catch you, I swear that/ we are all that we need, yeah" could come off trite and sterile; from Monét, they're three-dimensionally human, grounded by the emotional conviction of a person with something to lose. It's effective, if not a bit ironic—for all the pleading vulnerability, there's also an overwhelming confidence that doesn't seem to entertain rejection as a serious possibility.
"bluu hearts" - Tecoby Hines
There's something comforting and familiar to the sepia-toned jazz rap/R&B of Tecoby Hines, whose heartfelt thoughts and yearnings ("I just wanna wonder like a kid again...") almost never travel in a straight, A-to-B line, but rather like weightless tendrils of smoke, wafting and winding their way to the kind of truths that only can be revealed with time.
“How the Game Goes” - Deniro Farrar & Marc Spano
Deniro Farrar’s rough, booming baritone has always been a singular gift—the only question was what to use it in service of. For much of the 2010s, the answer was pretty clear: as a tool for glowering, pants-shitting intimidation, with lyrics often surpassed in venom only by the sheer malice of the production itself. These days, Deniro is more grizzled mentor/elder statesman than instigator, doling out wisdom like “this song for my young n****s ridin with them poles, yelling ‘you don’t want no smoke,’ man, I hope this touch your soul.” Over the jazzy bedding of Charlotte producer Marc Spano, his cool, measured narration has never sounded better.
"No Tellin'" - Kooley High, Sinopsis ft. Blu
A moment of blunt honesty: if this list was "The 24 Best NC Hip-Hop Songs of 2025," maybe another track would've beat this one out. But this isn't some attempt at the objective "Best" of 2025, it's my personal favorites, and when f*cking Blu appears on a Kooley High track, it would have to sound like a car crash to be left off. Instead, in-house producer Sinopsis' re-imagines "No Tellin'" in even dreamier form than the Tuamie-produced original. It works for more than one reason—the LA legend's prodigious skill, yes, but also his spiritual, soul-searching nature that fits right in as part of the later-career K-High universe.
“LITE BROWN” - Khalil Nasim ft. Yahliq
If I was to give a friend one name (outside of the usual, more-publicized suspects) to watch in NC over the next few years, it would be Khalil Nasim. And if I was to give one song as a reason why, it would be "LITE BROWN," which sees the Henderson native (and Deviants comrade Yahliq) at his captivating best, weaving together diaristic self-reflection, political philosophy, and the charismatic presence of a natural-born storyteller.
Ryan Cocca is the founder/editor of Super Empty, a former furniture entrepreneur, and, a man with a 24-song 2025 playlist. He (I) can be reached at ryan@superempty.com. To learn more about Super Empty and support our work, check out the About page.