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Drake lives up to his “6 God” nickname, with the superstar lifting the year-end trophy as Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artist for a record-extending sixth time.
He first ruled the leaderboard in 2012 and followed with a four-peat in 2015-18. With his sixth time in the winner’s circle, Drake pushes farther ahead of his second-place competitor R. Kelly, who wrapped four years as the genre’s top act.
While Drake returns to familiar territory on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artists standings, he is the inaugural champ on the new Top Rap Artists recap. The Weeknd leads the Top R&B Artists chart for 2021.
Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts dated Nov. 21, 2020, through Nov. 13, 2021. The rankings for MRC Data-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the November-November time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by MRC Data.
Explore All of Billboard’s 2021 Year-End Charts
Drake secures his sixth Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artists crown thanks largely to a massive fourth-quarter performance from his new album, Certified Lover Boy, and its singles. The album, released Sept. 3, arrived with the highest one-week total for any album – 613,000 units – during the 2021 chart eligibility period [of chart dates Nov. 21, 2020 to Nov. 13, 2021]. The album’s massive streaming entrance, too, spilled over onto the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, where Drake achieved an unprecedented lockdown of the list’s top 14 spots at once, including the No. 1 prize for “Way 2 Sexy,” featuring Future and Young Thug.
Two more No. 1 Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs hits padded Drake’s 2021 chart-year résumé. His single “Laugh Now Cry Later,” featuring Lil Durk, arrived at the summit of the weekly list in November 2020 for a six-week stay. The achievement also gave Drake a record-breaking 21st champ, surpassing Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder for the most leaders by any artist since the chart began in 1958. In March 2021, he followed with a 22nd No. 1 – “What’s Next” – the same week that he also ranked at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, with “Wants and Needs,” featuring Lil Baby, and “Lemon Pepper Freestyle,” featuring Rick Ross.
Beyond his artist accomplishments, Drake also takes top honors as the year-end No. 1 songwriter on both the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Rap Songs charts.
Pop Smoke’s ‘Moon’ Rises: The late Pop Smoke claims the 2021 year-end No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart as Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon rules the annual recap. The album was released in June 2020 – four months after Pop Smoke’s death at age 20 during a home invasion – and finished at No. 5 on the 2020 year-end recap. Despite the release date, its consistent chart performance drives its chart-topping finish – the album ranked in the weekly top 10 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in all but two weeks during the 2021 chart year.
That longevity traces to a chain of hits that kept the album afloat, with radio success for the singles “For the Night,” featuring Lil Baby and DaBaby; “What You Know Bout Love”; and “Hello.” The trio made its deepest impression at the rhythmic and rap formats, as the former pair both topped the Rhythmic Airplay and Rap Airplay charts, while “Hello” peaked in the top five on each list. Thanks to the sustained radio presence, Pop Smoke finishes as the No. 1 artist for 2021 on Rhythmic Airplay and Rap Airplay, and “What You Know Bout Love” is the top-charting song for both formats.
Sonic Boom: Silk Sonic – the duo of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak – captures the 2021 year-end No. 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart as “Leave the Door Open” finishes up top. The R&B tune, released in February, reigned for eight nonconsecutive weeks between March and August and spent all but one of its 26 weeks on the list inside the top 10.
“Door” likewise rules the Hot R&B Songs for 2021, as well as the Adult R&B Airplay year-end ranking. On the latter’s corresponding weekly tally, the Silk Sonic track logged 13 weeks at No. 1.
Giveon Takes New Artist: In addition to Silk Sonic, R&B acts re-establish their claims to other top honors that have gone the way of their rap contemporaries in recent years.
Giveon ends 2021 as the year’s Top New R&B/Hip-Hop Act and is only the second predominately R&B performer in the past decade to achieve the feat, following Khalid in 2016. Much of the singer’s 2021 activity centered on his single “Heartbreak Anniversary,” which was originally released in 2020 but found a second wind in the U.S. market after it became a worldwide smash.
“Anniversary” peaked at No. 3 on the Hot R&B Songs chart, one of four top 10s for the rising R&B star in 2021. Beyond the breakout, he posted top 10 results with “Like I Love You,” “For Tonight” and as a featured act on Justin Bieber’s “Peaches,” which also featured fellow R&B hitmaker Daniel Caesar. “Peaches” reigned for 10 weeks atop Hot R&B Songs and gave Giveon his first No. 1 hit there.
With four long-lasting top 10 hits in his arsenal, Giveon is also the top artist on the Hot R&B Songs chart for 2021, and his behind-the-scenes contributions power him to a No. 1 finish as the chart’s top songwriter too.
H.E.R.’s ‘Damage’ Controls Radio: Similarly, H.E.R. returns R&B performers to the top slot of the annual R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart standings. With her No. 1 year-end triumph, she is only the third R&B performer to claim the honor in the past decade, joining Miguel [2013] and Bruno Mars [2017].
The singer-songwriter also nets the sister prize, as her single “Damage” is the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart’s top song. Though H.E.R. had already accumulated a record of R&B/hip-hop airplay hits, “Damage” exceeded many of her previous feats: It peaked at No. 2 on the weekly list – her best showing as a lead artist – and remained on the chart for 52 weeks, more than doubling the stay of any of her previous lead efforts.
As with several of the biggest R&B radio hits of late, “Damage,” too, reaped the chart rewards from finding favor with adult-leaning and mainstream-oriented stations, both of which power the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. “Damage” initially landed with mainstream audiences – reaching No. 1 on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart in March – before translating to the Adult R&B Airplay chart, which it led for five weeks in June-July.
Other top year-end radio honors go to Moneybagg Yo, who achieves a win as the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart’s top act of 2021. The Memphis rapper established himself as a new favorite on the airwaves this year, with successive top-five hits as a lead act for his tracks “Said Sum” [No. 2], “Time Today” [No. 1 for two weeks], and “Wockesha” [No. 1, two weeks].
Yung Bleu, meanwhile, wins the Mainstream/Hip-Hop Airplay’s song prize, as “You’re Mines Still,” featuring Drake, crowns the 2021 leaderboard.
What were some of the most notable trends on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart through the first three quarters of 2021?
Hit Songs Deconstructed, which provides compositional analytics for top 10 Hot 100 hits, has released its State of the Hot 100 Top 10: Q3 2021 report.
Here are five takeaways from Hit Songs Deconstructed’s latest in-depth research.
Hip-hop over pop: Through the first three quarters of 2021, hip-hop was the most popular primary genre in the Hot 100’s top 10, with a 41% share of all top 10s. Pop ranked second, at 36%.
Hip-hop pulled ahead of pop after pop led 41% to 34% in the year’s first half. Helping ignite the turnaround? The Sept. 18-dated Hot 100, when Drake claimed a record nine concurrent top 10s, all from his album Certified Lover Boy, which launched that week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Leading his haul, “Way 2 Sexy,” featuring Future and Young Thug, soared in atop the Hot 100 that frame.
Hip-hop won a tight battle in the Hot 100’s top 10 for all of 2020 [41% vs. 40%], after pop took 2019 [48% vs. 34%] and hip-hop led in 2018 [59% vs. 24%, a relative landslide thanks in part to, again, Drake’s dominance that year].
Guys’ gains: Songs with exclusively male lead vocals dominated the Hot 100’s top 10 in Q1-Q3 2021, accounting for a 73% claim of all top 10s. Titles with exclusively female lead vocals drew a 19% share.
The gap between the two widened slightly from a 69% vs. 23% split in all of 2020. Men also won by similar, though somewhat less decisive, margins in 2019 [62% vs. 22%], 2018 [63% vs. 23%] and 2017 [58% vs. 23%].
Meanwhile, songs mixing male and female lead vocals, such as The Weeknd and Ariana Grande’s remixed “Save Your Tears,” remained below 10% among all Hot 100 top 10s through the year’s first nine months, in line with an 8% share for such hits in 2020. That’s down noticeably from 16% in 2019 and 23% in both 2018 and 2017.
Time for a change: The most common song length for a Hot 100 top 10 in the first three quarters of 2021? Under 3 minutes, with a 37% share. The ranking reflects a worst-to-first nearly five-year turnaround, as in 2017 such a length placed last [9%]. Notably, The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber’s “Stay,” at just 2:21, reigned for seven weeks beginning in August.
Songs of 3-to-3:29 minutes in length fell to second in Q1-Q3 2021, after leading in all of 2020, down more than double from 53% to 24%.
Meanwhile, top 10s over 4 minutes again placed last over the year’s first three quarters, as in 2020 and 2019. Still, such songs made gains from 7% to 8% to 17% in that span [and with Q4 already including one record-breaking entrant].
Hold your applause: Synths remained the most prominent instrument in Hot 100 top 10s through the first three quarters of 2021. Not only has the sound led each year since 2017, it has risen in share from 75% to 81% to 91% to an even more dominant 95% since 2018.
Notably on the decline? Hand claps. After appearing in 80% of top 10s in 2017, and between 60 and 69% in 2018-20, they fell to 44% in the first three quarters of 2021. Still, a hand for top 10s this year featuring such, well, handiwork, including Dua Lipa’s No. 2-peaking “Levitating.”
‘Good days on my mind …’: Perhaps unsurprisingly, given 2020-21, songs with an introspective lyrical theme have increased among Hot 100 top 10s in that span. Such hits, including SZA’s “Good Days,” Masked Wolf’s “Astronaut in the Ocean” and Ed Sheeran’s “Bad Habits,” logged a 29% share in Q1-Q3 this year, a high since 2017 and rising from 21% last year and more than tripling from 9% in 2017.
Meanwhile, love/relationships led all lyrical themes among top 10s in the first nine months of 2021, mirroring its top-ranking 49% share in 2020.