Billboard Staff’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2024: No. 1— Kendrick Lamar

For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard has been counting down our editorial staff picks for the 10 Greatest Pop Stars of 2024 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 all right here. 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. (Listen to our new Greatest Pop Stars podcast discussing both of our top two artists and the thinking behind their rankings here.)

Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 was about many things, but first and foremost, it was all about him letting people know just what he’s capable of. It was essentially the thesis statement behind the biggest song of his year (“Sometimes you gotta pop out and show n—as”), with a sentiment that also ended up offering the title to the centerpiece event of his year. And throughout 2024, the often low-profile rapper did indeed keep popping out, emerging with new releases or revelations that captured headlines and captivated the culture. By year’s end, the people had unquestionably been shown, in ways they would never forget.  

And in truth, it wasn’t unreasonable for the veteran MC to assume that a reminder was needed. Not that anyone had really forgotten about Kendrick Lamar or his greatness; his run of unanimously acclaimed albums and beloved singles in the 2010s had already cemented him as a consensus all-time great. But praise for his most recent album, 2022’s challenging Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, was tempered and mostly brief: It received positive initial reviews and strong first-week numbers, but failed to either spawn a long-running hit single or dominate critics’ year-end lists the way his previous sets had. The following year, his output was kept to two collaborative singles, with Baby Keem on “The Hillbillies” and Beyoncé on the “America Has a Problem” remix; both were met with similar initial enthusiasm but little lasting commercial impact. Lamar was still a huge force in hip-hop and an overall legend, but he hadn’t been a major needle-mover in the mainstream since 2017-18, when he dominated pop culture with DAMN. and his curated Black Panther soundtrack.

What made Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 so remarkable, though, was that he 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. 

And it was like that from the very jump. After a quiet first couple months to his year, Kendrick Lamar crash-landed onto 2024 in March with his guest verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s incendiary new “Like That.” Absolutely everything about the song and his appearance on it was a big deal: Lamar’s cameo was kept under wraps until its release as the lead single and sixth track on Future and Metro’s much-anticipated We Don’t Trust You album, and his unexpected presence was the most exciting part of a release that already was generating some of the loudest buzz of the early year. And the song itself was an obvious and immediate scorcher even before Kendrick’s entrance: Based around expertly deployed high-octane samples of ‘80s rap classics by Rodney O and Joe Cooley (“Everlasting Bass”) and Eazy-E (“Eazy-Duz-It”) and Future’s own effortless understated cool, “Like That” had a timeless and fundamentally hip-hop energy to it that any MC drop-in would have likely sounded great over.

But as explosive as the song could’ve been even without him, it was still Kendrick’s s–t-stirring guest verse that really lit its fuse. His “I choose violence” sentiments — which followed in the footsteps of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Hiss,” a similarly firestarting (and internet-conquering) Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit from a couple months earlier — were inflammatory from his opening bars, but largely narrowed their focus as his verse went on to two specific targets: fellow rap superstars Drake and J. Cole. Those two had scored a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 together the year before with “First Person Shooter,” from Drake’s For All the Dogs album. The song – which Lamar was also rumored to have been invited to appear on – declared the trio a “Big Three,” via Cole’s guest verse, implying (as many rap fans had similarly claimed throughout the years) that they were rap’s reigning triumvirate, having each enjoyed over a decade of consistent commercial success and fan support. 

The three were not necessarily entering 2024 on equal footing, though – particularly not Kendrick and Drake. Kendrick’s critical acclaim and across-the-board approval was easily the most consistent of the three – he has 17 career Grammys, third-most among all rappers and over three times as many as Drake’s 5 – but he had also been the spottiest in recent years as a hitmaker. Meanwhile, Drake’s reviews had become progressively less enthused throughout his prior decade, but he remained bulletproof on the charts: “First Person Shooter” had been his 13th Hot 100 No. 1, moving him into a tie with Michael Jackson for the most in chart history among male solo artists. (Kendrick had just two total for his career to that point, and none since 2017.) 

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 Take Care, 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.” With that instantly legendary guest verse, the West Coast superstar essentially anointed himself the best rapper of his generation, while listing his competition (including Drake and Cole) by name and saying – with love – that he was aiming to “murder” all of them. Drake smarted at the callout, and the two would trade subliminal barbs back and forth on-and-off-record for years to follow. 

By the time of “Like That,” Kendrick was not feeling so subliminal. He didn’t mention either Drake or Cole by name – yet – but he left little doubt as to his intentions this time around, literally stating, “F–k” sneak dissin’,” name-checking “First-Person Shooter” and then proclaiming with disdain so acidic it could eat through your stereo speakers: “Motherf–k the Big Three/ N—a, it’s just Big Me.” And while it was Cole’s quote he was responding to, Kendrick’s true malice seemed directed at Drake, given the verse’s references to “Prince outliv[ing] Mike Jack” and For All the Dogs (“He gon’ see Pet Sematary”). As the rap world collectively lost their minds at the sizzling beef of the consensus best rapper of his generation firing shots at the obvious biggest, the song became an immediate smash, debuting atop the Hot 100, lasting three weeks at No. 1 and confirming Kendrick as officially back. 

Nonetheless, as the days passed following Kendrick Lamar’s callout and rap rubberneckers awaited (if not demanded) a response from Drake, the first rapper to actually reply to the dis was J. Cole. As part of his surprise-release mixtape – anxiously titled Might Delete Later – Cole offered some thoughts about Kendrick on the album’s closer “7-Minute Drill.” He mocked the reclusive rapper’s lack of productivity (“He averagin’ one hard verse like every thirty months or somethin’”) and the underwhelming reception to Mr. Morale (“Your last s–t was tragic”) but still went pretty soft at him by rap diss standards, and even admitted his misgivings about the beef in the final verse: “I’m hesitant, I love my brother.” Those reservations bloomed into full-on regret within days, as the track got a mixed-at-best reception from fans – and by that Sunday, Cole was referring to “Drill” as “the lamest s–t I ever did in my f–king life” to his fans at his own Dreamville Festival, and vowing soon after to delete the track from the tape (which he did). 

Following Cole’s bow-out from the feud, fans once again turned to Drake for an answer. The biggest rapper in the game for the prior decade-plus, it was hardly the first time Drake had been so publicly provoked, and as a student of rap history (and of rap battles in particular), he’d proven up for the challenge multiple times before. In early April, “Push Ups” leaked on the internet, and showed a Drake who seemed revitalized and hungry for more. Dinging Kendrick for his allegedly bad label deal, his history of questionable guest verses for pop stars and his height, among many other things, “Push Ups” inspired mostly positive response – and unlike “7-Minute Drill,” made it clear that Drake was ready to rumble. Five days after officially releasing “Push Ups,” Drake dropped another diss: “Taylor Made Freestyle,” featuring AI’d versions of the Toronto rapper rhyming as Snoop Dogg and 2Pac – showing extra disrespect to the Compton MC by mimicking his West Coast progenitors – and further taunting Kendrick for not having responded to Drake’s first diss yet. 

With the days passing and no Kendrick response yet in the offing, some onlookers began to wonder if he was unprepared for Drake’s multi-pronged response. But he answered such doubts on Apr. 30 with the release of “Euphoria,” a six-plus-minute excoriation of all things Drizzy, poking at his insecurities about his mixed race and overall place in the culture, his supposedly absentee parenting and even his alleged issuing of a cease-and-desist order over “Like That.” Kendrick also declared himself “the biggest hater,” evidenced it with a laundry list of Drake items that inspired such ire in him (“I hate the way you way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress…”) and then warned against Drake responding: “If you take it there, I’m takin’ it further/ Psst, that’s something you don’t wanna do.” The song electrified the internet, topping the daily and real-time rankings across streaming services, debuting at No. 11 on the Hot 100 despite its mid-week drop and reaching No. 3 after its first full week of release.

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 timestamp series, which posited that even members of Drake’s own team were turning against him in the beef. That song didn’t get much time to marinate though, as Drake responded that night with his biggest punch in the series: “Family Matters,” a remarkable seven-minute, three-part epic that saw Drake adapting multiple different flows to take on not just Kendrick but several of the side opponents who had jumped into the beef at various points, including Rick Ross, The Weeknd and A$AP Rocky. It also came with a video, featuring Drake crushing a version of the car Kendrick featured on the cover of his good kid, m.A.A.d city album, flaunting jewelry that used to belong to tertiary feud figure Pharrell and even eating at Chinese restaurant New Ho King, which Kendrick referenced on “Euphoria.” Most notably, it ended with accusations about Kendrick being physically abusive to fiancée Whitney Alford: “They hired a crisis management team/ To clean up the fact that you beat on your queen.” 

“Family Matters” was a stunner, but the song got even less time in the spotlight than “6:16 in L.A.” Not even an hour later, Kendrick returned fire with “Meet the Grahams,” a series of lyrical letters penned to Drake (real name: Aubrey Graham) and members of his family – mother Sandra, father Dennis, son Adonis – that made for the most vicious and coldest-sounding entry in the beef. Over icy piano plinks, Kendrick launched a full-on character assassination of his opponent, not only raising the stakes with major accusations of his own – that Drake had been sleeping with underage girls – but mentioning a secret daughter of the 6 God’s, calling back to Drake’s feud with rap great Pusha T in 2018, which had essentially ended with Push’s revelation that Drake was “hiding a child” in Adonis. By this point, the feud had gotten exceedingly messy with horrific allegations – some of which would be downright criminal in nature if proven true, but none of which were ever accompanied with any real evidence. The actual veracity of the matters seemed to mean less to onlookers than the escalation of both the drama of the back-and-forth and the speed by which it was now being accelerated, anyway, leaving rap fans delirious with whiplash and making it tricky to rule on who, if either, was leading in the fight. 

But the next song would be a clear K.O. Not even 24 hours after “Meet the Grahams,” Kendrick released his third new song of the weekend with “Not Like Us.” The song doubled down on the accusations of “Grahams,” with barbs as brain-sticking as they were condemning (“Tryin’ to strike a chord, and it’s probably A Minor…”), and also spent an entire verse breaking down how Drake used his Atlanta collaborators for cred and cachet, concluding “You ain’t a colleague, you a f–kin’ colonizer.” But more important than the song’s lyrical content was how goddamn catchy the thing was: Outside of the beef-starting “Like That,” Drake and Kendrick had mostly been sparring with long, hook-less songs based around aggressive, unwelcoming productions. “Not Like Us,” by contrast, was irresistible from its opening saxes and strings. With an infectious, Monk Higgins-sampling beat helmed by storied West Coast producer Mustard, and an universally applicable four-word chant-along chorus (“They not like us”), the song wasn’t just another crushing body blow in the beef – it was also an undeniable pop smash, the kind of jam you could hear and love without knowing a single thing about the context behind it.

And a whole lot of people did. Almost immediately, “Not Like Us” became the most popular and beloved song generated by the feud, debuting atop the Hot 100 – despite an incomplete first week of tracking, and despite arriving at the most competitive time for big hits on the chart in recent memory. The song was just that sensational, not only dazzling those who’d been invested in the back-and-forth from the start, but also delighting casual music fans of all stripes. Before long, it had spread all across pop culture, becoming a reference point for Kamala Harris during her presidential campaign and also the year’s biggest new jock jam, lighting up sports stadiums and arenas across the globe and eventually soundtracking the Los Angeles Dodgers’ World Series championship celebration. The song’s four-note riff became arguably the most iconic string hook since Bernard Herrmann’s classic Psycho score climax 64 years earlier – and probably even scarier for Drake, who was now trailing in the feud by just about any estimation.

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. But the song was not particularly well-received, with many viewing Drake as sounding overly defensive on the track, and also just coming off (understandably) exhausted in general. While Drake had competed well and showed out very respectably across the feud, his strategy had proven faulty: “The Heart” was another imposing, hook-less freestyle-type rant, which few were tempted to play back a second time when they could keep bumping “Not Like Us.” It all pointed to the most unlikely twist of the feud’s denouement: All throughout his beef history, Drake had carried the day by pivoting back to scoring hits, the one battlefield on which no competitor of his the prior 15 years could possibly match him. That it was Kendrick who won the feud by delivering the undeniable pop smash – with Drake still mired in dirgey beats and chorus-free invectives – was simply astonishing.

With the feud essentially over, the rapper having showed all he could possibly hope to show, and “Not Like Us” remaining omnipresent as the spring began to turn into summer, it was easy to imagine Kendrick Lamar – never one to overstay his welcome – retreating back to the shadows, and letting his now-unavoidable hit trumpet his W for him throughout the year’s remainder. But the first and most important indication that less-is-more was not going to be his strategy for 2024 came with the June announcement of his The Pop Out: Ken & Friends concert, to be held on Juneteenth at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif. While a Kendrick live show was not necessarily a particular rarity in itself – his Big Steppers tour had just taken him all over the world, through the end of 2023 – the date, location and general post-feud timing of this particular show suggested this was going to be more of an event than usual. 

That perception was quickly validated by the show – which was not only delivered to a packed Forum full of celebrities ranging from NBA stars LeBron James and James Harden to fellow pop megastars The Weeknd and SZA, but to millions watching around the globe via streaming on Amazon Prime. The “Friends” alluded to in the event’s name ended up being a Who’s Who of local talent, from up-and-comers to longtime West Coast stalwarts like Westside Boogie and Dom Kennedy to true national stars like Tyler, the Creator and Steve Lacy – as well as beloved hitmaking collaborators of host DJ Mustard, like Ty Dolla $ign and YG. But of course, Kendrick’s performance was the main event, and his set – which also included appearances from Black Hippy co-stars ScHoolboy Q, Jay Rock and Ab-Soul, and from legendary early mentor Dr. Dre – proved a celebratory moment for Kendrick’s entire legacy, dating back to his good kid days and encompassing a staggering number of hits (although none from Mr. Morale) in the years since. 

Of course, the biggest spotlight moment was saved for “Not Like Us,” which Kendrick played as the set closer and ran back repeatedly – cutting his first two renditions off at the first verse’s “A Minor” line, letting the crowd (and the millions by then participating along over social media) stretch out “Minorrrrrrr” for him as he shimmied wordlessly. By the fifth time through, he had been joined on stage by dozens of well-wishers in the crowd, including NBA stars (and Cali natives) Russell Westbrook and DeMar DeRozan and members of various local gangs, with the usually opposed sets united in their love for Kendrick and for their city (and their disdain for his enemies). Kendrick even staged a group photo with all involved on stage before calling it a night, commemorating the moment as one about much more than just him – though it also was undoubtedly about him, and how he was enjoying a victory lap like few seen before in pop culture history. 

It wasn’t over yet, either. Just weeks later, on Independence Day, Kendrick released the music video for “Not Like Us” – his only song in the feud, even including “Like That,” to receive an official visual. The brilliantly composed and (of course) L.A.-set clip portrayed Kendrick as a local deity, leading public throngs of followers in chant-alongs of the by-then-hymnal chorus – and also as a family man, dancing in his home alongside fiancée Whitney as their children play behind them. While Drake had explicitly denied Kendrick’s minor-abuse allegations on record, these video images were the closest Lamar ever came to publicly responding to Drake’s domestic-abuse claims, broadcasting the message that all was good within the Lamar family unit. Also unequivocal in its messaging: the vid’s inclusion of an OVO-looking owl being beaten as a piñata, showing that “the biggest hater” had not yet risen above kicking his adversary while he was down. (The video’s July 4th release also felt like an additionally purposeful reminder of just how Not Like Us his Canadian foe remained.) Regardless, excitement around the video sent the song back to No. 1 on the Hot 100 for a second week. 

From there, things mostly went quiet in the feud, as it appeared that Kendrick was already turning his focus to 2025. In September, the rapper was announced as the headliner of the upcoming Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, via an Instagram video in which Lamar hyped up his performance (and perhaps implied that he would not be running back his Drake beef: “You only get one shot at the championship, no Round Twos”). The announcement was met with some controversy over the fact that the NFL did not first reach out to Drake’s old mentor (and Big Easy icon) Lil Wayne for the gig – despite the fact that the Big Game’s host city and the hometown of its chosen halftime performer have only ever matched a few times in the show’s 30-plus years of pop headliners – but also a great amount of excitement over how the most victorious performer of 2024 might cap his year-long W on the Super Bowl stage.

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 (and eventual conquering hero) 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 Billboard staff’s eventual own list, the best pop song of the year – in “Not Like Us.” He could claim several of the year’s defining cultural moments. And he was already headed for a triumphant start to 2025 – not just with the Super Bowl, but as was announced in early November, likely the Grammys as well, where “Not Like Us” and “Like That” were up for a combined seven nominations, including song and record of the year for the former. If there was one remaining hole in his resumé, it was simply a question of volume, as he’d only officially released four total songs in 2024 to that point – a low number for a Greatest Pop Star, especially in a year where several of the top candidates released full new albums. 

But wouldn’t you know it: Kendrick Lamar was about to check that box as well. At noon on Friday, Nov. 22, with absolutely no warning – and no reason to suspect that anything was even on the horizon – Kendrick dropped GNX to streaming services and digital retailers. The 12-track set of all new material swept through the internet like wildfire, proving the excitement for Kendrick’s 2024 had not abated in the months following the Pop Out. The set drew rapturous reviews from fans and (mostly) the same from critics – the day of its release, esteemed Stereogum writer Tom Breihan declared that he was already “ready to tell you that it’s the best album of 2024 and the greatest work of Kendrick Lamar’s career.” The commercial response was similarly effusive: GNX debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 319,000 units moved – the best number for a hip-hop set in 2024, despite coming with no physical release – and blanketed the entire top five of the Hot 100, including Kendrick’s third No. 1 of 2024 with the set’s “Squabble Up.” 

More noteworthy in size than the set’s numbers was its overall feeling. Kendrick had gone big with his albums before, but rarely quite so mass-appeal: Outside of its grinding and grumbling opener “Wacced Out Murals,” GNX was easily his most accessible work since at least DAMN., and probably of his whole career. The floor-filling “Squabble Up” was propelled by a sample from Debbie Deb’s ‘80s freestyle classic “When I Hear Music,” the lush “Luther” floated over a hook borrowed from Luther Vandross’ version of “If This World Were Mine” (with help from superstar collaborator and former labelmate SZA) and the inflammable “TV Off” practically baited TikTok to make it go viral, with its “Not Like Us”-reminiscent Mustard beat and Kendrick’s impossibly memeable “MUSTAAARRRRD!!!” mid-song yawp. None of the three songs felt like compromises or concessions – they were all quintessentially Kendrick, and reminded of past beloved hits, even if they now listed top 40-conquering superproducer Jack Antonoff in their credits – but it was still a little stunning to hear them all on the same LP. Tellingly, in their first three weeks on the Hot 100, the three songs remained in the top 10, and each took turns as the highest-ranking song from the set. 

GNX merely confirmed what his entire 2024 to that point had already pretty clearly suggested: This was the year that Kendrick Lamar really decided to go for it. He had hardly ever been a shrinking violet to that point – he was responsible for some of the grandest artistic statements, biggest hit songs (and weightiest accompanying videos) and largest-scale live performances we had seen in the last decade. But most, if not all of it, did seem to come with the slightest bit of hesitation, the push-pull many major artists go through when faced with the prospect of total pop ubiquity: Kendrick likely desired a level of mainstream success and recognition commensurate with his level of acclaim from hip-hop heads and critics, but did he want it enough to accept everything else that came with it? Maybe not always; even as recently as “Euphoria” this year, he was sneering at Drake, “Only you like being famous.” And so he would often pull his pop star punches, refusing to play the mainstream game, disappearing from visibility for long stretches. 

But not this year. This year, starting with “Like That,” he was all the way in, and when he saw an opportunity available to him, he immediately put that motherf–ker in a headlock. Whether it was Drake and his continued rap reign that so inspired him, or whether it was the relatively muted reception to his (absolutely underrated) Mr. Morale that got his blood up, or if simply after 15 years of “ha[ving] this b–ch jumpin’” he decided it was time to prove beyond a doubt who the game’s true alpha dog was – or some combination of the three – he left no meat on the bone in 2024. There were countless moments throughout the year when Kendrick could’ve declared victory and gone back into hip-hop hibernation and no one would’ve faulted him for it, but instead, he ended the year with three Hot 100 No. 1 hits, the year’s most-acclaimed and biggest-debuting rap album, seven Grammy nominations and a booked gig on the world’s biggest stage. That’s what the truly great ones do – or, more to the point, what they don’t do: content themselves with “good enough” or even “great enough” when there’s all-time potential on the table. 

And Kendrick’s year was easily an all-timer. It’d have to be to rise to the top of these rankings in 2024, an all-time spectacular year for pop stardom. It’s unquestionably the greatest year a rapper has had this decade – reminding that rappers even can still have years this big at a time when the crossover paths to pop-level success are simply not as open as they were 5-10 years ago – and on the shortlist of the best years a rapper has had this entire century. It is certainly the most all-around triumphant: No other rapper has ever toppled a foe this mighty in such spectacular fashion and, at least in the short term, assumed his turf in the process. While Kendrick commanded the entire top five of the Hot 100 at once this year – something that previously only Drake had done among MCs – none of the 6 God’s own post-beef releases have even graced the top 25. And it’s hard to remember a single other artist from any genre who stopped the world as many times in one year as Kendrick has in 2024: Each of “Like That,” “Not Like Us,” The Pop Out and GNX made for an iconic cultural moment that fans will remember with piercing clarity and still-visceral excitement decades down the line.

There’s still no real end to the victory-lapping in sight, either. Beyond the Super Bowl and the Grammys, Kendrick also announced a co-headlining 2025 stadium tour alongside SZA – a live scale neither of the other “Big Three” have ever attempted – taking him to the biggest venues in North America through the entire Spring. Meanwhile, the three GNX hits remain three of the very biggest non-holiday entries on the Hot 100, meaning they should also be three of the biggest No. 1 contenders on the chart as 2025 gets underway – and they may soon be joined by a fourth in SZA’s just-released, Kendrick-featuring “30 for 30,” which is already dominating DSPs. And who’s to say what totally new material he may soon be inspired to drop – especially considering his mural just got wacced out again? By the time his next year is over, we may need to stop comparing him to other rappers and start comparing him solely to Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. It just goes to show: Sometimes when you pop out, you end up the Greatest Pop Star of ‘em all.

See the rest of our top 10, along with our Honorable Mentions and Rookie and Comeback of the Year artists all right here — and our podcast episode about both Kendrick and Sabrina’s top-two 2024 runs and the thinking behind their rankings here — and see you for plenty more Greatest Pop Stars in 2025!