The Top 10 Most Popular Hip Hop Singles The Week Of 9/5/2011

Weeks that begin with holidays always set a laid back tone for the rest of the week, and that’s exactly what this week brought. However, some freestyles made their rounds, including Styles P rockin’ over Drake’s “Marvin’s Room,” along with Red Cafe’s take on “N***as In Paris.”Big Sean went to the UK and spit for Tim Westwood , while Pusha T hit the Big Apple to drop some bars off to Funkmaster Flex . Even instrumentals circulated from Wale (“That Way”) and Drake (“Headlines”). All in all, the holiday week showed some grabbing for straws, but thanks to mixtapes we still had some good music to check out.

It’s a Cole World This Week

J. Cole rocked the top spot this week and second place, with the two leaks from his “Any Given Sunday” series (listen to #1 and #2 ). Cole’s been sporatically dropping songs off in anticipation for the September 27th release of Cole World: The Sideline Story. The track “Heavy” made #1 and “Neverland” hit the #2 spot. Then, a mixtape reworking of “Who Dat” dropped in at #4 and right underneath it was a Cole World track “Can’t Get Enough” with Trey Songz. That song initially dropped last year, but the final version hit the ground running once promo for Cole’s new album started. In other new album news, Wale’s “Chain Music” arrived as a CDQ. Originally, that cut appeared on Wale’s “The Eleven One Eleven Theory” mixtape (listen ), but was finalized now and will appear on his album Ambition dropping November 1st.

Mixtapes To the Rescue

Peter Rosenberg’s “What’s Poppin’ Vol. 1” (listen ) had perhaps the most exciting tracks to choose from during this holiday week (the J. Cole “Who Dat” remix with SD and Childish Gambino appeared on there). The mixtape also offered up a Kendrick Lamar track called “My Mind Drifts” (#6), plus the Tyler, the Creator and Domo Genesis of OFWGKTA “Odd Twisted” freestyle (#8). Jay Sean’s “The Mistress” mixtape grabbed Lupe Fiasco for “Say Yeah” at #7, while the DJ Holiday “Holiday Season Vol. 4” mixtape gave us some Weezy on the Streetrunner-produced track “We Back Soon.” Closing out the list at #10 was a Paul Nice remix of Jay-Z’s Black Album track “Public Service Announcement.” This week goes to show you that Hip Hop still loves mixtapes and remixes.