Hey DJ 4U › Stories

The Rise of the Featured Artist

Until the 1990s, a “featuring” credit on a year-end hit was almost unheard of. By the 2000s it was on more than a quarter of them. This is how the guest verse became one of pop’s most reliable tools.

50s60s70s80s90s00s10s20s

Decade	Year-end entries with a featured artist	Share
The 1950s	0 of 400	0%
The 1960s	0 of 1000	0%
The 1970s	0 of 1000	0%
The 1980s	1 of 1000	0%
The 1990s	34 of 1000	3%
The 2000s	264 of 1000	26%
The 2010s	297 of 1000	30%
The 2020s	97 of 600	16%

Hip-hop and R&B drove the change. A rap verse on an R&B single, or a singer's hook on a rap track, could carry a song to two audiences at once. The peak decade here is the 2010s (30%). The 2020s figure covers 6 years so far.

The most-featured artists

#	Artist	Year-end entries as a featured artist
1	Drake	29
2	Lil Wayne	25
3	Nicki Minaj	19
4	T-Pain	15
5	Ludacris	14
6	Akon	11
7	Chris Brown	11
8	Jay-Z	10
9	Rihanna	10
10	Justin Bieber	10
11	R. Kelly	8
12	Snoop Dogg	8
13	Pharrell	8
14	Kanye West	8
15	Young Thug	7
16	21 Savage	7
17	Cardi B	7
18	DaBaby	7
19	Eminem	6
20	Ashanti	6

Hear any of these. Tap ▶ next to a song to play it on the Hey DJ 4U decks: a 30-second preview, or the full song with Apple Music.

Open the mixer

Based on the year-end Top 100 singles charts, 1956–2025, as compiled on Wikipedia. Artist counts include lead and featured credits. How we handle the data.