XXL Freshman Lists are always interesting, especially when the freestyles and the cyphers start coming out to show if the artist can really rap or not.
Artists from Kendrick Lamar to XXXtentacion have chosen to grace the cover of the magazine in the past, but this year is a little more confusing.
First, which artist will decline the offer to grace the cover? People like Migos and Torey Lanes declined to be on the cover in their breakout years and are still popular artists to this day.
One artist that comes to mind that could decline the cover is Cardi B. She’s already one of the hottest artists out now, doing songs with Bruno Mars, Migos, and G-Eazy. So, declining the cover would not cost her anything.
Second, which artist will be on the cover that did not get voted in last time. The huge upset last year was Famous Dex, who had numerous hits like “Drip for My Walk” and “Pick It Up” that year. However, he did not get on the cover.
Tee Grizzly also fits in this category too. He had songs such as “First Day Out” and “No Effort.” Even athlete Lebron James showed himself playing his songs in the gym, which went viral.
Both artists had big years last year. Will it be enough for them to make it this year, with some of these new artists coming with good songs as well?
One huge question is why Bhad Babie is counted as a hot artist. She has two songs that made the Billboard Top 100, but she has no mixtapes or albums like the other artist that are being considered. She also is one of the youngest people to be considered for the cover.
How will the cyphers and freestyles be this year? Some of these have little to no lyrical substance at all. Maybe they have secret talents or are the next Playboi Carti? Hopfully that is not true. Hopefully, the producer is as good as the previous ones.
The last question is will there be anybody who blows up after this cover? In previous lists, there were artists that nobody had heard of, like when Logic was on the list. Logic did have a pretty good fan base however, but the majority of people did not know who he was.
Logic then released his debut album and the rest is history. Overall this has to be the weirdest group of artists to be considered for the list. I just hope that this year’s list can be comical at least.
Courtesy of XXL Magazine.
