The Great Debate: Does XXL’s 2012 Freshman List Even Matter? Posted by Nathan S. on 02/29/12 | Filed under Top Stories, Features, Debates, The Great Debate, XXL

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If you love hip-hop then you love debating hip-hop. Who was the greatest emcee of all time? Who won, Jay-Z or Nas? Did Nicki Minaj get booty implants? These hotly contested questions are endless - which is why I've teamed up with Andreas Hale over at TheWellVersed for a new series we're calling The Great Debate. Every week, or two, or whenever we decide, we'll pick a question and then come down on opposite sides. Got it? Good, then let's get started with today's question, "Does the XXL Freshman List Even Matter?"

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My daughter is almost two-years-old, which means she’s entering the dreaded “terrible twos” phase. Now they call them the terrible twos because that’s when kids start to figure out that the quickest and easiest way to get attention – ultimately what we all want – is to knock over a lamp, draw on the wall with crayons or just generally completely lose their shit. The trick though is to regulate when it comes to the truly dangerous maneuvers and simply ignore the rest; don’t give them attention and you remove the entire reason for their existence.

Am I comparing XXL to a two-year-old running around the house naked while screaming at the top of their lungs? Yes, yes I am. Stick with me – and don’t worry, I promise this isn’t another “rapper X should have been on there instead of rapper Y” piece. The problem’s much deeper than that.

Every year around this time the first signs of spring start to cautiously poke through a frozen earth, the swallows return to their nests, and everyone collectively freaks the fuck out over XXL’s Freshman List; a freak out that is made all the more fucking freaky because the Freshman List doesn’t matter, at all, except to the extent everyone freaks out about it.

The genius of the Freshman list, as far as XXL’s pageviews are concerned, is that it’s so ambiguous. Just what is a “Freshman”? Freshman have been as old as 30 and as young as a teenager. They’ve been signed to majors (sometimes repeatedly) and indie, have already had singles chart and never even touched radio. And what it is exactly that all of these “Freshman” have in common? They’ve broken through from unknown to well known? They’re XXL’s picks to become the next superstars, or merely the next well known rappers?

I don’t know, you don’t know, and I’m pretty fucking sure XXL doesn’t know either. All the better for stirring up controversy!

But everything above simply makes the XXL Freshman yet another dumb list designed to generate debate (cough MTV’s Hottest Emcee cough). What makes the Freshman list different is a belief, shared by bloggers and rappers alike, that being a Freshman isn’t only an “honor”, it’s a ticket to something bigger. Whether they’ll admit it or not, a lot of artists believe that landing on that cover is the single best thing that could happen to their career short of appearing in a Cassie x Kim Kardashian sex tape. Land on that cover and doors will open that were closed before. Labels that wouldn’t return your calls before will now massage your balls while feeding them lobster bisque.



I truly believe that in many rappers, and the larger public’s mind, it goes a little something like this:

Rapper eating ramen >>> named a Freshman >>> flying private jets.

But the truth is that short of a brief burst of publicity, the XXL Freshman List doesn’t fucking matter. At all. Do you really think anyone with any actual power will change their mind based on what they know is an arbitrary (and corrupt?) list from a far past its prime magazine? Go ahead, find me one story of a label exec who said, “You know where I first saw Rapper X? On XXL – they’re the reason I signed Rapper X.” Go ahead, find one story. I’ll wait.

I’m sure by now a lot of people think I’m merely an angry and jealous rap blogger…which is true. Being forced to listen to people debate this list is like having to listen to a debate about who would win in a fight, a vampire or a werewolf; it doesn’t fucking matter, they’re both not fucking real!!! It’s fucking infuriating to have to listen to.

But lucky for me, we’ve now got years of actual objective evidence to look at. Go ahead, look at the Freshman from past years, and then ask yourself how successful those rapper are now. I think you’ll pretty easily see that the people who were successful were the ones who cared the least about making the list in the first place...because they knew it didn’t really matter. They were already doing everything they needed to build a career so stable it couldn’t be swayed by any one magazine.

And the rappers who believed being named Freshman would launch their career? They’re now on tour with the Charles Hamilton All-Star Band.

So to recap, a magazine no one buys comes out with a meaningless list that will have no effect on the rappers’ careers or hip-hop in general, and we get sucked into the same black hole of heated debate every year because…….?

The XXL Freshman List has no inherent meaning or value – which is good news. That means that if we simply stop paying attention to it, it will stop having even the symbolic, over-hyped “influence” it has now.

My advice? Like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum in a Toys R’ Us, ignore XXL - paying attention will only encourage them.

Read The Well Versed's Rebuttal and vote below.




See Also: The Definitive Breakdown of XXL’s 2011 Freshman List
See Also: Grading XXL’s Top 10 Freshman List