Rap is a popular music genre that has been around for many years.
Sure, it has changed through the decades but the core meaning of the genre still stands.
People love the beat and rhyme patterns that rap music presents.
It is also a tad more complex than other genres creating an element of surprise and excitement.
In our vast world, there are a ton of rappers. These days, rap music is churned from all corners of the earth, by the young and the old, and in many languages.
But just how many rappers are there in the world?
The Correct Answer
It is virtually impossible to know how many rappers are found across the globe.
There are no databases or entries with this kind of information.
See, the word ‘rapper’ can be interpreted in several ways. This can mean successful rap music artists whose songs are on billboard charts. These are the likes of Jay-Z, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, and Cardi B.
Then there are millions of rappers whose efforts haven’t made it to the light of day.
They have composed songs and recorded them in the studio but they are yet to have breakthroughs in music. As such, very few people know about them.
Further, there are less-known rappers who haven’t recorded any songs but still rap freestyle from time to time.
To get the list that totals all these different rappers would be impossible.
Close Estimates
Although there are no credible sources for the actual number of rappers in the world, we can take some estimates.
Currently, the United States has the largest number of rappers than any other country in the world.
After all, it is the birthplace of both hip-hop and rap. Most of the famous names in the rap industry are from the United States.
Take the list of the top 100 richest rappers in the world, for instance.
The entries as compiled by therichest.com include famous names such as Kanye West, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, Russel Simmons, Drake, Usher Raymonds, Master P, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Ice Cube, and more. The list only contains names of the chosen few successful rappers.
Raptology has also compiled a list of rappers as well. This one is more comprehensive and has names of rappers for all alphabet letters.
Each alphabet letter averages around 100 names meaning the list is about 2,600 names.
Still, there are millions of rappers in the world who haven’t made it to the list.
Wikipedia also has such a list of hip hop and rap artists and it is in the thousands.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) conducted a survey of rap and hip-hop music.
They discovered that about 26% of people across the world listen to rap music.
This translates to approximately 1.85 billion people.
These numbers can only mean one thing: there are millions (if not tens of millions) rappers in the world today to cater to this vast number of listeners.
Reddit users, when asked the number of rappers in the world, point to millions, at least. One user believes that every city has about 100 rappers.
And Simplemaps records 4 million cities in the world.
If we use this analogy, we will have about 400 million rappers in the world.
Obviously, this is somewhat of an exaggeration but the point is that the world has millions of rappers.
In summary, it is safe to say that rappers in the world are in the millions or tens of millions.
A majority of them hail from the United States but other countries such as Morocco, Brazil, and South Africa has many rappers as well.
But, it’s quite a challenge to estimate the exact number.
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