2021 Billboard Music Awards: Who will win 'Top Artist'?

Although his Certified Lover Boy album has been postponed, Drake decided to hold fans over with a three-song EP featuring collabs with Rick Ross and Lil Baby. While we've been bopping to Scary Hours 2 since the moment it dropped, so have you. He made Billboard history earlier this year by holding down the three top spots on the Hot 100. Let's also not forget that Drizzy will be honored during this year's ceremony as Billboard's Artist of the Decade. All hail the King of Toronto.

Rapper Juice WRLD made history months after his untimely passing at the age of 21 after reportedly suffering a seizure at Midway Airport in Chicago and was pronounced dead a short time later at the hospital. Released after his passing, his album Legends Never Die officially became the most successful posthumous album release of the last two decades in the US. This nomination is bittersweet for fans who had hopes the "Lucid Dreams" crossover rapper would have brought so much more to the table given more time on this Earth.

It's been over a year since Pop Smoke was murdered during a Brooklyn home invasion. The rising star was only 20 years old at the time of his tragic death and was well on his way to becoming the next big thing, making his acting debut in March in Eddie Huang’s coming of age film Boogie. Pop Smoke's thumping track "Shake the Room" made it's way into the UFC world in 2020, and his debut album Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, hit number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in July, with all 19 tracks landing on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart.

Must we even? Fine, Taylor Swift is re-recording all of her past albums to regain creative and monetary control; she dropped not one but TWO secret albums while under lockdown; she's also opened up her vault of unreleased songs for fans, and she just beat The Beatles' long-standing record for the fastest time of having three albums go number one on the chart. As the only female in the running, we just have to say... Come at her, bro.

After dropping the biggest digital track of 2020 with "Blinding Lights", his epic Super Bowl performance, and his After Hours album getting snubbed at the GRAMMYs, it's looking like The Weeknd's time to shine on an awards stage may finally be at hand.