Kendrick Lamar ranked atop the list featuring Drake, Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, and more.

Kendrick Lamar has been named the greatest pop star of 2024 by Billboard’s staff, capping off a list that includes Sabrina Carpenter, Drake, Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, and more. They argue that he began the year “on the fringes of pop stardom” but had a “world-swallowing 2024” to catapult him to the top.

Billboard writes that Lamar “didn’t just remind us of all the reasons why he was so big at his commercial and cultural peak – he showed that he could do things we’d never even seen from him before. He showed that he was capable of hitting heights no other rapper had reached this decade, a period that had otherwise marked something of a downturn for the once seemingly indomitable genre’s mainstream prospects. He showed that he was able to create cultural moments of both singular blunt-force impact and massive historical gravity – and then to do it again, and then again. And he showed that at his absolute best and biggest, he could dominate the streets, the charts and everywhere in between with equal sun-blocking vastness, and emerge as the winner not only when pitted against his most direct adversaries, but against any other potential peer in popular music.”

Kendrick Lamar Performs During Austin City Limits Music Festival

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Kendrick Lamar performs Oct. 13, 2023, on the American Express stage during the Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park. © Dave Creaney/For Austin American-Statesman. / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The pick has predictably been proving controversial among Drake fans on social media, but Taylor Swift fans have also been flooding Billboard’s comments section on Instagram with complaints. “Bigger than Taylor Swift?” one user wrote. “Taylor had the biggest tour, biggest sales, biggest streaming numbers, she set new records with TTPD and won the 4th Grammy AOTY, more than anyone in history. You’re wrong and you know it.” Another added: “I‘m a swiftie and it should’ve been taylor.”

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Kendrick Lamar Named Top Popstar Of 2024

Lamar kicked off his massive year by releasing several diss tracks in his viral feud with Drake, including “Like That”, “Not Like Us,” and more. Months later, he released his sixth studio album, GNX, which debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart. Lamar’s reign doesn’t look to be ending with 2024 either, as he’s already got a Super Bowl Halftime performance as well as a stadium tour lined up for 2025.