i tried my best to answer this question. i think its a few things:

1. their rise coincides with the "big three" era in the NBA and because hip hop and basketball are so intertwined we tend to argue about them in the same ways

2. they started at the same time, are all grounded within the preceding rules of hip-hop (compared to some more trailblazer-y artists like future, thug, etc.), and had both top-of-the-genre success and longevity

what do yall think? is it a dumb nickname? who should be up there?

there was a thread from the OG ktt where someone said drake was the heart kendrick was the mind and Cole was the p**** ive tried to find it like 100 times and i cant

kanye​tothe.com/threads/3-gatsu-no-lion-is-anime-of-life.3858409/page-1894#post-265094706

All I could find with it

LMAOOO i feel like it predates 2015

If Travis and Future were more lyrical, they'd be in the convo too tbh.

i put travis in a different category because all the other guys were 2-3 albums in before his first studio album, and i put future in a different big three later on (based on influence) because i feel like on different metrics than these guys he could def be in a "big three" but its based more on influence and boundary pushing than it is on commercial success

I never understood the issue people had with it

I think it’s safe to say we now regard drake as the p****

need to see the other two to fully confirm.

people just love to argue, its like basketball, you can have the same debate 10,000 times

You get why someone would call em that in like the early 2010s to mid 2010s. But Future since 2015, Trav since 2018, Carti since idk like 2021 have all been bigger rappers IMO than Cole in my humble opinion.

It's a valid thing but I always hated its exclusive nature, future and Travis had have something to say

Kanye: the a******

Delusion

i think theres just space for more than one big three, like if we use the basketball example, KG ray allen and paul pierce don't just stop being a "big 3" because lebron wade and bosh linked up. they're all big 3s in different eras. the cole/drake/kendrick career paths are forever intertwined because of the way they came up and their similarities. i think u can say the same of uzi and carti, maybe u can put travis in that group but hes a bit of a tweener

See Cole is this guy's favorite rapper, his namesake, and he's still not even his 7th most streamed artist

lmao cole hasnt dropped in like 3 years tho

Logic: the spirit

Somebody f***ing kill me

woah we have a number for this.

Is it because they disagree with the 3 names or is it the term ''big three''? I've seen so many people call it cringe but I'm used to talking about top 3s, top 5s and top 10s from sports discussions so calling it cringe never made sense to me

For sure I would agree there's an Era where they were the big three but like idg why people referring to them as the big three nowadays. Is there even a big three anymore with how splintered rap is

yea its beyond whether we think its cringe or not at this point because its no longer fanfiction, now kendrick is on wax talking about it haha

Damn just making s*** up as you go is even more delusional