Short answer: Rap songs about friendship come in three kinds — tributes for a friend who's gone ("See You Again"), loyal-crew anthems ("Crew Love"), and fake-friend warnings ("Real Friends"). Here are 10 tracks and how to write one for your best friend.
10 rap songs about friends
Rap spends a lot of time on money and rivals, but its longest-running subject might be friendship: who stayed, who left, and who gets remembered. These ten tracks cover the whole range.
| Song | Artist | Year | What it's about |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friends | Whodini | 1984 | Asked how many of your friends are real, four decades before it was a trend. |
| T.R.O.Y. (They Reminisce Over You) | Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth | 1992 | The blueprint for remembering a lost friend in rhyme. |
| Tha Crossroads | Bone Thugs-n-Harmony | 1996 | Grief delivered in harmony; the goodbye feels collective. |
| I'll Be Missing You | Puff Daddy & Faith Evans feat. 112 | 1997 | A eulogy for The Notorious B.I.G. that became the biggest song in the country. |
| Crew Love | Drake feat. The Weeknd | 2011 | For the few who believed in you before anything happened. |
| Started from the Bottom | Drake | 2013 | A victory lap taken with the same people from the start. |
| No New Friends | DJ Khaled feat. Drake, Rick Ross & Lil Wayne | 2013 | The closed-circle anthem: loyalty over headcount. |
| See You Again | Wiz Khalifa feat. Charlie Puth | 2015 | Written for Paul Walker; it topped the Hot 100 for 12 weeks. |
| Real Friends | Kanye West | 2016 | Turns the question around: am I a real friend either? |
| Best Friend | Saweetie feat. Doja Cat | 2021 | Pure hype for the friend who celebrates you out loud. |
The three tribute songs in the middle rows — "Tha Crossroads," "I'll Be Missing You," and "See You Again" — all reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Grief songs for friends are not a niche; they are some of the biggest hits the genre has produced.
The three kinds of friendship rap
If you want to write one yourself, every friendship rap falls into one of three buckets. Pick yours before you write a line.
The tribute. This is for a friend who's gone or far away. The rule is one specific memory beats ten adjectives: write the exact afternoon, the inside joke, the last conversation — not the word "miss." "T.R.O.Y." works because it's built from small remembered details, not a grand speech.
The crew anthem. This is for the group that's still standing. Name the old places, who always pays, who's late to everything — the details are the love language. "Crew Love" and "Started from the Bottom" both work as thank-you notes to the people from before the good years.
The fake-friend check. This is the mirror song. Draw the contrast between what the real ones did and what the extras did, the way "No New Friends" counts loyalty and "Real Friends" counts disappointment. The strongest ones add a line turning the lens on the speaker — asking whether you've been a real friend too.
Write a rap about your best friend
The gap between "I should write something for Sam" and actually doing it is usually the beat. Close it with the AI rap generator: upload one photo of each of you, describe the friendship in a sentence, and it builds an original two-person rap video, around three minutes long, with both of you in it.
Topic ideas that work well:
- "Met in fourth grade over a stolen eraser — still arguing about it"
- "Two time zones, one group chat that never sleeps"
- "The friend who helped me move twice and never mentions it"
- "Turning 30 with the same five people from the school cafeteria"
A single video costs $9.99 (10 credits), a five-pack is $29 (50 credits), and larger packs run up to $99 for 350 credits; subscriptions start at $19 a month. If a generation fails, your credits stay yours — the full breakdown is on the pricing page.
For more material around the same craft, the funny rap lyrics list covers the comedy side and rap battle roasts covers the competitive side. And since rap friendships often come in pairs, the best rap duos list and the story of Quavo and Takeoff show the format at its highest level.
Rap songs about friends FAQ
What is the most famous rap song about friendship?
Commercially, "See You Again" — twelve weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 makes it the biggest friendship tribute in rap history. Historically, Whodini's "Friends" is the oldest entry everyone still quotes.
What rap song is about fake friends?
"Real Friends" by Kanye West and "No New Friends" by DJ Khaled are the two modern standards. Whodini's "Friends" asked the same question in 1984.
What rap song is for a friend who passed away?
"Tha Crossroads," "I'll Be Missing You," and "T.R.O.Y." are the three classics. All three were written for real people the artists lost, which is why they still land.
How do I make a rap song about my best friend?
Pick one of the three kinds — tribute, crew anthem, or fake-friend check — write down your five most specific shared memories, and feed them into the AI rap generator with a photo of each of you.