RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Billboard — the article as it was filed.
Podcast titan Joe Rogan believes that hip-hop’s relative lack of commercial success in 2026 can be attributed to the Trump administration’s defunding of the USAID.
Rogan made the claims about hip-hop during the Aug. 13 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience with comedian Shane Gillis, Mark Normand and Ari Shaffir.
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“The weird thing is how rap’s fallen off the charts. It’s because USAID got defunded,” Rogan claimed. “USAID, the agency for international development, is well-known to have been funding a bunch of radical, anti-government rappers overseas. Funding a ton of them. It was basically all about regime change.”
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. Agency for International Development “has been a pillar of U.S. soft power and a source of foreign assistance for struggling countries, playing a leading role in coordinating the response to international emergencies such as the global food security crisis.” Per Reuters , the Trump administration announced in March 2025 that it had cut more than 80 percent of USAID-funded programs.
“The 5,200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X at the time.
There appears to be no evidence linking USAID and funding of the rap music industry, but it’s been a conspiracy theory that’s gained a lot of steam thanks to country’s recent Hot 100 takeover , including Ella Langley’s 18 weeks atop the flagship songs chart with “Choosin’ Texas.”
Paired together, R&B/hip-hop remains the No. 1 consumed category of music, according to Luminate’s midyear report in 2026. However, R&B/hip-hop’s stranglehold on the market share has declined in recent years, as the genre fell by 1.6 percent since midyear 2025.
R&B/hip-hop has also “experienced the sharpest decline in equivalent market share since 2023” on the Billboard 200 . As far as rap’s chart performance in 2026, Drake is the only hip-hop act to top the Billboard Hot 100, which he did with “Janice STFU” in May. Drizzy’s ICEMAN album is the only project to spawn a top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 , which also lifted Future and Molly Santana to No. 2 on the Hot 100.
Rappers have enjoyed more success on the Billboard 200 albums chart with Drake, alongside Don Toliver, A$AP Rocky, Future and J. Cole , becoming five of the 22 artists to top the tally in 2026.
Watch the full episode below. Rogan’s comments on rap and the USAID take place around the 2:10:00 mark.
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