SZA & Kendrick Lamar Are All Over the Year-End R&B/Hip-Hop Charts: Countdown to Billboard’s 2025 Year-End Charts

The full list of Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts are almost here, and we’re counting down the days to their unveiling on Tuesday, Dec. 9, with a special look at select rankings in the lead-up to the big reveal — and today (Dec. 2)., we have the top 10s of three of the year-end R&B/hip-hop charts.

On Dec. 9, hundreds of year-end charts will be posted on Billboard’s website, following the conclusion of the Billboard 2025 No. 1s Livestream, hosted by Druski, which will broadcast on the Billboard News YouTube channel and BillboardTV on Samsung TV Plus starting at noon ET/9 a.m. PT, as special surprise guests stop by to celebrate the year in chart-toppers.

Today, we’re dropping the top 10s of the 2025 Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Hot R&B Songs charts.

Kendrick Lamar and SZA‘s “Luther” leads the year-end Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs roundup, following its unstoppable run on the weekly version of the chart. It debuted on the chart dated Dec. 7, 2024, climbed to No. 1 just two weeks later, and was on the chart during the rest of the 2025 chart year (Oct. 26, 2024, through Oct. 18, 2025), never falling below No. 3.

SZA, meanwhile, crowns the year-end Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums recap, with a project that debuted on the weekly chart on Dec. 24, 2022 — SOS. It’s the second time the title has finished atop the year-end Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, as it also reigned in 2023. (It was the No. 2 album of 2024.) The album’s chart performance in 2025 was enhanced by its expanded reissue with additional songs in December 2024, dubbed SOS Deluxe: LANA. All versions of the album, old and new, are combined together with the original album for tracking and charting. During the 2025 chart year, SOS never left the chart, spent 15 weeks at No. 1, and never ranked below No. 6.

The Weeknd and Playboi Carti‘s “Timeless” tops the year-end Hot R&B Songs chart. The track premiered at No. 1 on the Oct. 12, 2024-dated Hot R&B Songs chart, and remained on the list through the July 19, 2025, chart. During that span, it spent 20 weeks atop the ranking, never going lower than No. 4. “Timeless” marked the 12th No. 1 for The Weeknd and the first for Playboi Carti.

For the top 10 of the three lists, scroll below. The full depth of the three rankings (beyond the top 10s of each) will be posted Dec. 9 alongside the complete menu of Billboard‘s 2025 year-end charts.

Billboard’s year-end music charts represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts from Oct. 26, 2024, through Oct. 18, 2025. Rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the entries appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the October-October time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.