Drake is No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end Top Artists chart for a second time, while 2021 marks the fifth straight year that a male artist has led the tally.
Post Malone was tops in both 2020 and 2019, while Drake was the top artist for the first time in 2018 and Ed Sheeran ruled in 2017.
According to Billboard, Drake is the year’s top artist not just thanks to the success of the pop and hip-hop superstar’s latest Billboard 200 No. 1 album, Certified Lover Boy (his 10th No. 1), and its accompanying hit singles on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart; he also reigns supreme via the continued presence of his catalog of previously released albums on the Billboard 200
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.
Certified Lover Boy debuted at No. 1 on the Sept. 18, 2021-dated Billboard 200 chart and logged only nine weeks on the survey before the 2021 chart year closed.
Certified made the most of its short time in the 2021 chart year, as it also finishes at No. 5 on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums recap.
