Billboard has taken on the task of ranking the 25 greatest pop stars of the 21st century over the next few months. They kicked off the campaign by revealing the honorable mentions, which included 50 Cent, Doja Cat, and Cardi B.
These honorable mentions were omitted from the 25 because, according to Billboard, they “ultimately just didn’t quite have either the stats, the impact, the longevity or the volume to elbow their way into our main list.” Other honorable mentions included Alicia Keys, Chris Brown, Future, Jennifer Lopez, Kendrick Lamar, Megan Thee Stallion, Missy Elliott, Nelly, Post Malone, Sean Paul, and SZA.
Of 50 Cent, they wrote: “After losing a much-publicized first-week sales showdown with Ye (then Kanye West) in 2007, the bottom fell out for 50 Cent surprisingly quickly – he’s yet to score a Hot 100 top 10 hit as a lead artist or a Billboard 200 No. 1 album since, and new releases became more scattershot as he shifted focus to his acting career and business investments.”
As for Doja Cat, Billboard wrote, “The recency hurts, of course, as does the fact that as many brilliant moments as she’s strung together over the years, she doesn’t quite have the pull to stop the world with a release – evidenced by the fact that she’s yet to score a Billboard 200 No. 1 album.”
Lastly, the elusive Cardi B: “Tough to crack the quarter-century list when your mainstream breakthrough came two-thirds of the way through those 25 years. And even though Cardi kept scoring hits following the Invasion of Privacy era, some of those hits – ‘Money,’ ‘Up,’ ‘Enough (Miami)’ – might have enjoyed longer chart runs had they been tethered to a proper full-length.”
Although these artists didn’t make the top 25, they are still in elite company, having even been worthy of an honorable mention. 50 Cent is relatively inactive musically, while Doja and Cardi are still in their primes. Fans are waiting impatiently for the Bronx rapper’s sophomore album after her game-changing debut Invasion Of Privacy in 2018. In May, she told Rolling Stone that her album has taken long because it has been difficult to establish focus; she enjoys making a variety of music that aligns with her changing moods, which has been tough to capture into one collection of music.
