When Drake first debuted at No. 92 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated May 23, 2009 with breakthrough hit “Best I Ever Had,” few could’ve guessed that it would mark the start of one of the successful careers the chart has ever seen. But a little over a decade and a handful of historic chart runs later, the artist born Aubrey Graham has again etched his name in the Billboard record books — as the artist with the most hits in the Hot 100’s 60-plus-year lifespan.
As if that wasn’t enough, “First Person Shooter,” Drake’s blockbuster collaboration with J. Cole from his For All The Dogs album topped the Hot 100 on October 21, 2023. The accolade gave the OVO head honcho the same amount of number ones as the legendary Michael Jackson. It’s a feat many thought would never be topped, but Drake’s career has been a showcase of broken records.
Of course, with Drake’s chart ascent coinciding with the rise of streaming, it’s not like all 328 of these songs were “Drake hits,” at least in the old-fashioned, single-oriented sense. The majority of these entries are album cuts that charted along with the rest of their parent sets, while featured appearances that Drake lent to trusted collaborators like Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, Future, and (of course) Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne over the years are equally numerous.
Yet despite the staggering number of entries Drake has notched on the Hot 100 over his chart run — an average of nearly 20 a year since his mid-2009 chart debut — the rapper’s entire catalog is hardly represented here. Missing of course is anything from pre-fame mixtapes Room For Improvement or Comeback Season, along with such early fan favorites as “Houstatlantavegas,” “Fear,” “Karaoke,” “Lord Knows,” “The Ride” and “Draft Day.” (Also worth noting that despite prominently featuring Aubrey, Travis Scott’s Hot 100-topping “SICKO MODE” does not technically list him on its official artist credit, nor does Young Money’s No. 2-peaking crew cut “BedRock” — thus neither is included here.)
Still, the great majority of the singer-rapper’s best-known work can be found here, spanning from his first pop breakthroughs to his diaristic deep cuts to his harder mixtape tracks to his meme-courting later smashes. Read on below and see how we rank an already unprecedented chart run — one that, by all indications, is still far from over.
