Drake makes hits and *fire emoji* songs. We all know this. He indirectly put out the best rap album this year, and at this point, it's impossible to listen to the radio without hearing Drake at least once. Dude's not only bodying the streets, but also the digital radio charts (woo!). While the concept of "radio" might be weird to 99 percent of millennials ("is radio that thing we used before AUX cables?"), it's definitions have changed with the emergence of modern streaming music services like Spotify and SoundCloud.
But back to grandpa's platform: radio. To properly measure who radio's top artist of 2014 was (for royalty purposes), SoundExchange did some bean counting. After drawing numbers from satellite radio, internet radio, and cable radio, they came to this lovely conclusion: Drake was 2014's most streamed artist over digital radio. With 2014 hits like "Only," "Believe Me," "Tuesday," and "O-100" all catching plays, plus the residual playback value of 2013's Nothing Was the Same carrying into this year, this shouldn't be a surprise. Rihanna, Lil Wayne, Eminem, Usher, Beyonce, and Chris Brown also made SoundExchange's Top 20, which you can view in full below.
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Shit is really hot up in the 6 right now—IRL and on radio.
