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Billboard Staff’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2024: No. 1— Kendrick Lamar
Kendrick Lamar is our Greatest Pop Star of 2024 for his historic year of rap- and pop-world dominance.
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. 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. 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.
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