Even before the year began, analysts predicted we’d hit Peak Drake in 2016. They weren't wrong, they just miscalculated the formula.

To paraphrase Jay Z, Drake 2016 was not a businessman, he was a business, man. In just over 10 months, the OVO mastermind managed a staggering amount of firsts: first artist to have an album stream over one billion times on Apple Music (following his one-week streaming record, 245.1 million times in the U.S., on the same service); the first with 20 simultaneous hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and the first since 50 Cent to simultaneously lead the Billboard Hot 100 and 200 charts for at least three weeks. The 30-year-old also passed Eminem’s Billboard record for rap album with most weeks at No. 1 (nine straight), broke Adele’s U.K. streaming record, had “One Dance” — the official Song of the Summer — crowned the most-streamed song in Spotify history and, along the way, topped Justin Bieber as that service’s most-streamed artist of all time.

Read more about Drake's dominance in 2016, and nine other artists who shaped our conversations around music this year, via our special feature Making Noise.