A feature can make or break a rap song. Sure, a rapper can do his own thing but sometimes, a guest verse or a hook can allow the song to reach new limits. Think Juelz Santana on “Welcome to New York City” declaring, “it’s the home of 9/11, the place of the lost towers/we still bangin’, we never lost power.” Or look at features like Rick Ross on “Devil in a New Dress” and Andre 3000 setting the table on “Int’l Players Anthem.” These records are great as is– the features take it to the next level.
Halfway through the 2020s, we’ve received an abundance of classic songs and breakout moments in hip-hop. But what about the feature verses? What are the definitive supporting roles of the 2020s so far? In researching for the list, two things became apparent. For starters, Lil Yachty has an uncanny ability to nab a killer verse from an artist. Secondly, it seems like nowadays, the primary artist on records weren’t nearly as inclined to get waxed by their features. So far, it seems like artists are working at equal footing, even if that bar isn’t very high in the first place. However, there were a handful of show-stopping verses that stand head and shoulders above the rest.
The Five Best Feature Verses of the 2020s (So Far)
André 3000 on “Life of The Party”
André 3000 told GQ in 2023 that rapping for him nowadays felt inauthentic. “I try all the time… but I don’t be knowin’ what to talk about most of the time,” he says. At this current juncture, he’s more inclined to do sketches of songs on pianos and long-winded jazz exercises. That’s okay; we shouldn’t force André to rap if the exercise becomes more laborious than joyful and liberating.
However, when he raps like he did on “Life of The Party,” this idea that he doesn’t know what to rap about doesn’t quite add up. The way he details grief and what it means to live in the aftermath of a loved one’s death through the loss of his mother and father is devastating. How do you fill the space of someone you love to that degree? The silence becomes deafening. “If there’s a heaven, you would think they’d let ya speak to your son,” André sighs.
This is all anyone could ever want from André 3000: raw, emotional creative expression. Maybe it’s too emotionally draining to crank a bunch of verses out like this. Maybe rapping isn’t always therapeutic in that way. But if all André has to express is the raw, complicated questions and emotions in his life, rapping is a beautiful way to convey that.
Future on “Pardon Me”
Hip-hop has always been about ingenuity. Ingenuity is what empowered rappers to move on from “Rapper’s Delight” to something as domineering as Run DMC and dexterous as Rakim. Ingenuity is the reason we saw hip-hop expand from the Mecca in New York to a national, then global experience. It’s why so many rappers can bend syllables, contort flows, wiggle around with melodies. As much as we should hold some measure of purity and traditional love of hip-hop as genre and culture, it’s important to be open-minded to all the ways rapping is such a dazzling craft.
Future is one of those rare creative masterminds that represent what hip-hop is all about. A product of the Dungeon Family, he knows how to tinker with the traditions of rapping with something fresh and unheard of. His verse on Lil Yachty’s “Pardon Me” highlights this perfectly, where he whistles a different inflection at each set of lines to establish a rhyme pattern. Additionally, deep into the verse, he’ll bend internal rhymes at his fingertips through a playful inflection. Future embodies rap ingenuity at its best, imagining how to experiment with our conventions to create something magical.
Roc Marciano on “Photographic Memories”
Every rapper shows up with their A game when they rap on an Alchemist beat. Perhaps it’s the fact that there’s such an open canvas on his production. Typically, there’s a soul loop and minimal to no drums, allowing rappers to follow their own pace and tone. Everyone from Boldy James and Armand Hammer to Freddie Gibbs and Curren$y, rappers clamor for these beats.
At his best though, Roc Marciano can stand head and shoulders above the rest. The proof is in “Photographic Memories,” where he handily outraps hip-hop’s hardest working man in Boldy James and one of the best rappers in the world Earl Sweatshirt. “Broke generational curses with my cursive,” Roc raps, his flexes of the utmost extravagancy. Marci rivals artists like Rick Ross in flexing, verses cut from King Solomon’s silk and engulfed in Scrooge McDuck’s riches. Still, he’s quick to remind us that he’s never been afraid to get his hands dirty when he needs to. “All this chicken, niggas came down with salmonella (Woo)/Screw the compressor on the TEC, it ain’t make a sound like a Tesla,” Roc Marciano snarls. He turns an Alchemist soul beat into his own private lounge adorned in gold.
Veeze on “Sorry Not Sorry”
Seriously, how in God’s name did Lil Yachty get two all-decade verses from people? Veeze is the man of a 1000 quotables, managing to pull off cartoonish animation in his rapping with drowsy monotone. His first verse deals in fast, dizzying spurts, punchlines zipping out like an SMG. The space between “Them boys done smoked like five opps, that’s a whole pack of LooseLeaf” and “We pink-slip boys, no car lease, my cup all pink like a Barbie/I’m sorry, not sorry like Beyoncé” is one micro line. Veeze crams the simplest, heaviest punchlines in such a tight space while never forsaking his sense of humor.
Then, in the second verse, he elongates the flexes slightly, a masterful flow over an iMAX level explosive beat. “I’m so rich, when I cheat on my bitch, she still gon’ take me back. I can talk that shit, but backin’ it up, that’s what I’m better at,” he boasts. Simple but effective, never forcing a word to fill the rhyme scheme, never cramming a reference that feels too tacky.
Maxo on “Call Tha Bro”
Maxo can cram a whole life story into one verse. On Pink Siifu’s soulful “Call Tha Bro,” he compacts pain and perseverance, adolescence and adulthood. “My papa took the double pump out the peacoat, Sip it til it’s no pain til his eyes lay twenty years later. Face to face with the s**t you ain’t facing,” Maxo raps over swampy guitars and howling horns. Each line lands like the squeaking plastic on grandma’s couch, cataloging the memories and echoing the same resolve: get up, get out, and get somethin’. “When I’m in that bag need it all full of that cash, can’t be spending all my time sad,” Maxo says.
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