What I mean by this is these mfs were being hyped up to a whole other level before they even had any sort of catalogue or project out. Turns out they actually lived up the hype as well.

Travis? I think Carti falls into this by himself

X
Weeknd
Drake

He was known before Owl Pharoah back in the Cruel Simmer era and he was being talked about a lot before he had even had a project out.

X is a very valid one. Drake just cause of being on Degrassi. The Weeknd?

House of Balloons blew the f*** up

Frank Ocean was featured on some big projects before Channel Orange

Post Malone

Pooh Shiesty. signed to Gucci before he even had a tape

It’s just Carti bro

Justin Bieber

Weeknd and Frank had the internet on fire back in early 2011 with both of them only having one tape out

the hype leading up to Shiesty Season was crazy

Xxx is a very great example of this

U not a real hip hop historian

you mean industry plants who people forgot were planted?

Drake i guess

I can’t think rn

Nicki is one of the biggest ones right?

Think it’s region dependent. Like yachty hanging around being remembered for his red dreads before dropping one night

not on the same level as trab or carti at all but ur right it was pretty wild

Nicki had various mixtapes and hit features & was prominently featured on the Young Money album before dropping her debut album

this thread prompt doesn’t translate very well prior to 2015 when considering catalogues not on DSPs