2 Chainz

In a move that seemingly nobody saw coming, 2 Chainz became one of the most indispensable rappers of the trap era, a guy whose relatively late start—he was in his mid-thirties before he became a commodity—belied a stamina, perspective, and raw soul that made the rest of the playing field look green by comparison. The jokes stuck: “Need a tat on my stomach that say ‘prawns only,’” went a line on 2017’s “Poor Fool.” But now they came on the back of memories of living in Section 8 housing, prayers that his mom would quit smoking, and real-life reckonings: “If I’m not successful,” he rapped earlier in the same verse, “ain’t nobody gon’ come console me.”