Dog Drake can get anybody out of there on a versus, whether its 10 records vs, 20 records vs, 30 records vs, 40 records vs....
Disagree unless we strictly talking charted singles, then yeah. If we going by the best cuts dudes got period, lotta nikkas can give Drake trouble...
But look, he aint light work for anyone, that isnt what I said or intimated...
2015 is late as hell ain’t no way
And Drake was definitely more popping than Kendrick at that time (2012)
Kendrick was aided in his put on by Drake given his own interlude on Take Care and then had a Drake feature on one of the biggest songs from GKMC
You can honestly argue as early as 2009 he was the buzziest rapper, in 2011 he took over that Take Care album has not stopped charting since. Take Care sold like 400,000 more copies than GKMC first week shyt wasn’t close.
Future also wasn’t right there he had fell off (around the time Thug, Migos, RHQ, Fetty, Speaker Knockerz start blowing up) some before he ramped up with his 2015 mixtape run of Monster, 56 Nights, Beast Mode and then DS2 and the WATTBA tape with Drake. That’s when he distinguished himself as a superstar. He wasn’t that before then, a lot of people made fun of Turn On The Lights and a lot of names were bigger pre-2015.
Drake had buzz dating to late '08, but I'm not in disagreement that he had the most buzz behind him...
Drake was not the biggest rapper in '11, it was nowhere near definitive at that point. Wayne had hella anticipation for C4, Ross was in the middle of his peak (cats on this board really undervalue Ross' work and in the early 10s he definitely had more burn in the streets than Drake); MMG and Meek and Wale were ascending; Ye and Jay dropped Watch The Throne and this is right after My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy; Nicki was still ascending...
Drake was popping but he hadn't yet separates himself. So that's 2011, the year several posters in here have suggested...
I don't know how it was playing in NY, but K Dot had been ascending and building momentum on The Coast since 2010, TDE as a collective was ascending. His intro to most East Coasters may have been via Take Care but many if us knew him from OD and there are those who knew him before that. When he dropped Good Kid Maad City he established himself as a leader of the new batch with Drake, I don't at all remember a consensus that Drake was better...
It's already established that Drake had a push that no one else had, this goes back to years earlier, and he's an actor turned musician, nobody was gonna outsell him. His fan base started out larger and wasn't organic as nikkas like Meek and Dot who'd been grinding for years...
2012 I think was when Ye and Jay toured and Ross was still at his apex, Future already had a bit of a cult following from his connections in The A and instantly grew his fan base...
I don't think, given Ross' peak run and the buzz on Ye and Jay and a declining Wayne, thar Drake was 2012's biggest rapper. You could argue for him bit it wasn't definitive. 2013, there was massive anticipation for Nothing Was The Same and most people in real time considered it underwhelming. I liked it, but it wasn't like the most fire drop ever, and other nikkas like Meek were still ascending...
He didn't drop in '14, Chance released maybe the GOAT tape to that point of the decade, Krit was on the rise, Cole was riding his best drop and ascending, Kendrick hadn't dropped in 2 years and was still ascending and growing his fan base, etc...
'15 was the year to me, because he really had the first important drop of the year, and it met the anticipation, from an artistic standpoint its arguably his best work to date, and the fact he dropped that in a GOAT year of many classics, then dropped another late in the year with Future, this is when he started separating...
Features or lack thereof never really affected Kendrick prior, and I think The Blacker The Berry is a timeless piece that is one of the 15 or so greatest rap albums ever, but Drake was so much all over everything in 2015, when you add that + his 2 classics in one year, this is when Drake took the mantle. And by 2016 he rode that momentum higher and kept it consistently going...
There is no "right" answer ti this question, I'm just stating why I say 2015. We all are gonna define "big" somewhat differently and if it's strictly about sales or mass appeal then sure, give Drake the crown going back to '09. I'm more talking about popularity + hype + the art matching both = separating from the competition...
There was no separation from the other top guys before 2015, not that I remember seeing...
. Hov's greatest disciple 
Not gonna argue you down there. You’ve long took your side on the topic
