DMX, Run-D.M.C. and The Fresh Prince Anchor Billboard’s Halloween Rap Picks

Halloween needs more than a costume and a fog machine. It needs a soundtrack—and Billboard is putting rap in the mix with a 25-song selection of Halloween-themed hip-hop, highlighting DMX, Run-D.M.C., The Fresh Prince and more.

The roundup is built for a weekend of spooky listening, with the publication pointing to those artists as examples of rap capturing the holiday’s atmosphere on record. This is a seasonal listening guide, not a new-release announcement: the draw is hearing hip-hop through a Halloween lens.

Let rap set the scene

There’s a useful distinction between a Halloween playlist and a playlist that simply sounds dark. One can lean into costumes, characters and playful scares; the other can make an ordinary room feel a little more ominous. A good holiday set has room for both approaches without turning every transition into a haunted-house sound effect.

That’s the appeal of making hip-hop the starting point rather than treating it as an interruption between familiar seasonal staples. For listeners planning the weekend’s music, Billboard’s premise offers a straightforward invitation: let rap carry the theme.

The three names highlighted in the summary also give readers an entry point without requiring them to know the entire selection. DMX, Run-D.M.C. and The Fresh Prince are the advertised signposts; the full roundup is where listeners can explore the individual choices.

A starting point, not a fixed party script

For your own queue, think about what the music needs to do. A pre-party soundtrack doesn’t have to move like a packed-room set, and a late-night listen doesn’t need to chase the same energy as either. Start with the atmosphere you want, then decide how closely you want to stick to the holiday theme.

The supplied preview doesn’t identify the individual tracks, so there’s no reason to guess which songs made Billboard’s cut—or turn the selection into a ranking it hasn’t been described as. What’s confirmed is the format: 25 Halloween-themed hip-hop songs, with those three acts among the featured names.

Ready to build the queue? Read Billboard’s full selection for the song-by-song picks. The weekend’s brief is simple: keep the Halloween atmosphere, but leave plenty of space for rap.