When Druski rides his ebike around Manhattan, he pulls his hood down to his eyebrows and zips his collar up to his nose. “I really just do it for safety,” he told TIME. Somewhere on the way to Brooklyn the hood comes off, and at the next traffic light two men dash across the street, filming, to flag him down for a selfie.
That scene opens “Druski Is Laughing All the Way to the Bank,” Lucy Feldman’s cover story for the 2026 TIME100 Next, the magazine’s list of 100 rising stars, published Wednesday (Sept. 30). The 32-year-old is on one of the issue’s three worldwide covers, alongside the singer RAYE and the Saturday Night Live standout Ashley Padilla. His shows him rising from a throne in a trench coat, on a set art director Jana Frost built by hand from printed archival images.
It’s a mainstream coronation for a comedian who built everything in the feed. Nine years ago he was posting short clips, including one of his car being repossessed after he dropped out of college. Now he has more than 30 million followers across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, two Super Bowl ads (Dunkin’ in 2025, T-Mobile this year) and a hosting job at this year’s BET Awards on his résumé. Drake was an early believer, casting him in a music video with Kevin Durant, Odell Beckham Jr. and Marshawn Lynch.
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He isn’t pretending to be humble about it. “You’re looking at the modern-day Eddie Murphy or the modern-day Kevin Hart,” he says. The plan is to push his characters into bigger formats: the money-hungry megachurch pastor from one of his sketches now anchors Collect & Praise, a series first meant for his YouTube channel that Netflix picked up, and he’s in the baseball rom-com The Catch with Chris Pine and Emma Stone, due in the spring. “Why can’t I take the money and try to recreate this in a bigger universe?” he asks.
The profile also gets into one of his most talked-about sketches, “How Conservative Women in America Act,” which has more than 100 million views on Instagram alone and features a look widely believed to reference Erika Kirk. In an April video that named no names, Kirk complained about “comedians dressing up in whiteface.” Druski would rather talk about the makeup than the politics. “I’m not no politician,” he says. “I’m just a funny guy.”
Ye’s congratulations
The loudest reaction came from Ye, who shared the cover to his Instagram Stories with a one-word caption: “Congratulations.” Druski thanked him with a salute emoji, then returned the favor with a deep cut, Complex reports: a clip from the HBO comedy pilot Ye made with Larry Charles in 2007, which was never officially released, in which Ye tells a doubter, “I was on TIME. … You never heard of it? TIME?”
The cover also landed on the day Livestream From Hell, Druski’s horror-comedy with Kevin Hart and Kai Cenat, shadow-dropped on Prime Video, with cameos from Fanum, Duke Dennis, Marshawn Lynch and Winnie Harlow, per Complex. Cenat first revealed it during his Mafiathon 3 subathon last year. Watch the teaser below.
Who else made the list
Seven musicians are on this year’s TIME100 Next: RAYE, Troye Sivan, PinkPantheress, Megan Moroney, Conan Gray, Alex Warren and sombr. TIME pairs every honoree with a guest writer, and the music pairings read like a group chat: Kylie Minogue on Troye Sivan, whose She’s the Best just arrived; Olivia Rodrigo on Conan Gray; Kelela on PinkPantheress; Tate McRae on Megan Moroney; Joe Jonas on Alex Warren; Stella McCartney on sombr; and Anya Taylor-Joy on RAYE. “She is all heart, all soul — all RAYE,” Taylor-Joy wrote, per Billboard.
Outside music, Charli xcx wrote Alex Consani’s tribute, Seth Rogen wrote Curry Barker’s and LeBron James wrote about Tyrese Maxey, his new teammate on the Philadelphia 76ers, according to TIME’s announcement. Druski’s tribute came from Mark Wahlberg, who writes that the two are in serious talks about making a comedy together.
The class gathers in New York on Oct. 29 for the TIME100 Next event, where RAYE performs and Druski is set to appear. Collect & Praise is due before the end of the year. “I had to find my purpose,” Druski told TIME. “I’m definitely living in it now.”
- List
- TIME100 Next 2026, published Sept. 30
- Cover stars
- Druski, RAYE, Ashley Padilla
- Druski’s tribute
- Mark Wahlberg
- Musicians on the list
- RAYE, Troye Sivan, PinkPantheress, Megan Moroney, Conan Gray, Alex Warren, sombr
- Event
- TIME100 Next, New York, Oct. 29
Sources
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 11, 2026.
