A few weeks back, we introduced you to the wonders of Google Trends. We tried to stress how useful it can be, but how misleading it can be as well. As we previously explained, Google Trends is "a free service provided by Google that allows users to see how often terms are searched on Google...it allows you to compare the popularity of different search terms."

What we tried to prove is that by using Google Trends, there's enough raw data for you to draw conclusions about the popularity of different rappers (provided their names are actually something you can Google. So congratulations, or condolances, to artists like B.o.B, The Game, Ice Cube and Nas for choosing monikers that prohibit us from accurately figuring out how popular they are on Google.) Our goal was to use Google Trends to try to get an objective, scientific ranking of just how "hot" the hottest rappers really are.

It should go without saying that Google Trends can't give us any type of qualitative assessment of an artist's music. It's more of a ranking of how newsworthy artists are, the interest level they inspire, on a mass scale. If something dramatic happens in a rapper's life (a sensational arrest, say, or a near-death experience, or even an album release) this will be reflected by a spike on the graph because more people are searching their names in an effort to learn the story.

So it's far from perfect, but we think our search of Google Trends is about as accurate as something like this can be. And we think it yields some important truths. (Well, as "important" as you think rap music is—we think it's pretty important. But of course, this is mostly just for fun.) Nearly all the "hottest" or "best" lists you read are based solely on opinions of the authors. This one is based on facts and raw data. We looked up just about every rapper name we could think of, put them into the trend machine and limited our search to the last 12 months. (Because we're interested in hotness "now.") And then ranked them based on their popularity. [Ed. note—The research for this post was done the Thursday, September 12. Due to the nature of news, the ranking could have changed already.]

Please enjoy: The 50 Hottest Rappers Right Now, Ranked According To Google Trends.

Written by Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)

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