Kendrick Lamar is our Greatest Pop Star of 2024 for his historic year of rap- and pop-world dominance.
for the last week — you can see the artists we’ve already counted down, plus our Honorable Mentions, Comeback of the Year and our Rookie of the Year artists . Now, at No. 1, we remember the year in Kendrick Lamar — who had a year that felt historic from its opening blast, and only got greater as it went. , with a sentiment that also ended up offering the title to the centerpiece event of his year.
While holding increasingly polarized places in the industry, the two pivotal hip-hop figures also maintained an uneasy relationship with one another. They started on good terms in 2011, with Kendrick getting a big early look on “Buried Alive Interlude” from Drake’s, and as an opener on his Club Paradise tour the next year, but their relationship chilled soon after – particularly in 2013, when Kendrick appeared on Big Sean’s “Control.
From there, the volleys in the feud came increasingly fast and furious. That Friday, three days after “Euphoria,” Kendrick returned with “6:16 in L.A.,” an Al Green-sampling diss titled after Drake’s famous, which posited that even members of Drake’s own team were turning against him in the beef.
Drake did respond to the Kendrick two-fer by the end of that weekend with “The Heart Pt. 6” – titled after Lamar’s own state-of-the-union series – which denied any relations with minors and taunted his foe for the hidden-daughter claims he made on “Grahams,” which Drake said was misinformation he’d purposefully leaked to Kendrick’s camp.
If Kendrick’s year had ended there, he would still have had a strong case for being the Greatest Pop Star of 2024. He was the co-protagonist in the biggest music-world story of 2024, and his renown only seemed to multiply in the months that followed. He had two Hot 100 No. 1 hits to his claim, including the biggest pop hit of his career – and by many accounts, including the, the best pop song of the year – in “Not Like Us.” He could claim several of the year’s defining cultural moments.
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