Every year, as part of our year-end list round-up, we dive into our data and gather information on who our users were looking up the most across the website. This not only gives you a sense of our users' favorites, it gives you a sense of the key hip-hop players in 2016. Things shift from year to year, as different rappers break into the game, come up and come down.
In 2015, we really thought Drake had the year on lock. We even wrote an editorial calling 2015 the Year of Drake. However, another year has gone and went (almost), and Drake reigns supreme, on HNHH and beyond. No artist has been able to dethrone the Toronto native from his spot as #1 most searched artist on HNHH-- since 2013 (!). Nonetheless the rest of the list has gone through some changes since 2015.
Both Young Thug and Tory Lanez have made significant jumps upwards, Tory might be the most impressive though, moving from #15 to #5 this year-- finally dropping his long-anticipated debut album (I Told You) might have helped. There are also some familiar faces returning to the list (Kevin Gates, Wiz Khalifa), while some that have been on many years past have disappeared-- we're no longer seeing Chief Keef among the top searched at all, which goes hand-in-hand with a decline in his output as a whole, as well as his hype.
Fetty Wap had a massive year in 2015 thanks to "Trap Queen," and it helped him soar up to #4 on our list last year. This year, however, he hasn't been able to pin down the same sort of astronomical hit, and he's also nowhere to be found on our list. Instead, we're seeing rap upstart Lil Uzi Vert break into the list for the first time this year, and the return of Gucci Mane (aka East Atlanta Santa) has resulted in placement on this year's list as well (where last year there was none). It's worth noting that 21 Savage is right at the cut off point (#16 most searched), with Migos and Kodak Black following closely behind him. Perhaps we'll see them on next year's list.
View our top 15 Most Searched Artists on HNHH in 2016 below.
15. J. Cole (156,414)
14. Lil Uzi Vert (170,271)
13. Gucci Mane (179,300)
12. Wiz Khalifa (199,414)
11. Kevin Gates (209,414)
10. Meek Mill (220,342)
9. Kanye West (220,671)
8. Rihanna (226,557)
7. Travis Scott (233,200)
6. Chris Brown (264,685)
5. Lil Wayne (286,314)
4. Tory Lanez (384,128)
3. Young Thug (384,900)
2. Future (472,000)
1. Drake (957,128)