most of the rap i like is either 90s-rooted (though not replicating) stuff like armand hammer. or ten-15 year old stuff like early young thug, migos, future, kanye. maybe there is good stuff still out there, i just dont know about it. but i suspect its in dribs and drabs or at the most micro level imaginable, an incremental shift, prob one you would only notice if you are deeply immersed in the genre. most things i hear are just decent enough, in the way most modern music can be made to sound decent, but theres not a whole big great new thing happening like with chicago drill or whatever. but i think rap is old enough now for it to be just ticking along without much new exciting energy there. something will come along soon enough, and it will be a new big moment, with one (or maybe a few) great artists/albums, and a lot of connected stuff. or the genre will suddenly get a lot of mainstream attention enough like country when someone outside the genre decides to make a new rap album. maybe ariana grande will do it. or rihanna will come back with a rap album. or taylor swift. and then there will be think pieces on what is great in new real rap etc. the other thing is like someone else said, most ppl dont care about newness or something fresh, its a load of other things often that people latch on to (mainly as newness is not really happening much), i dont really understand what these things are, maybe thats how its always been, just now boosted by various algorithmic/social media factors/parameters and a focus on a lot of celeb bs or a focus on what an artist is (identity politics etc) and what they represent, what new voice they signify, or what niche they fulfill (thinking of a lot of artists i see in crack magazine for example, but i dont really listen to them much, so who knows what they are like).