We’ve been bamboozled y’all. Hornswoggled and mislead.

Young Money & XXL were probably in cahoots the whole time on this.  All that frontin’ like they were too good to be among this year’s freshman class. When in reality, someone had to take Wayne’s spot in the rotation during his bid. It only makes sense; they’ve both garnered enough buzz to carry an issue catering to the same fan base as their detained Martian leader. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not 100% familiar with 100% of Hussle’s material, but I’d say it’s a safe bet that this DanTheMan-handled RadioPlanet Quikvid portrays Neighborhood Nip exactly the way he portrays himself. A guy who’s laid back with an attitude when necessary. One who appears overly aged and apathetic alike from having seen more in his 20-odd years than most see in their entire lives.

At 1:28, this may as well be Nipsey’s elevator pitch.

An extremely dope, Cookin-Soul-produced elevator pitch, at that.

Professors have to walk a fine line when it comes to giving praise to their students. Not enough positive reinforcement and the student becomes resentful, frustrated that the work is not being recognized. Too much and the student can get cocky, feeling like they’ressomehow owed special treatment and no longer needs to prove themselves. So maybe it was a bad idea to bestow so much worship on the 2009 freshman class. As soon as their images graced the cover of XXL, they were each anointed saviors to the rap game in his own way. For the most part, the music has been stellar. But overall, the attitudes; the “respect-me-or-else” mentality has been the Achilles’ heel to most of the rookie camp. Read the rest of this entry »

The XXL Class of 2009 is a little bit past the six month mark of its Freshman year. These 10 MCs may go down as one of the most important crop of newcomers to hit the scene in a while as the industry is watching closely to see which of the 10 different approaches to starting a career can set the blueprint for success in the struggling music business.

Professor D. is here to dole out midterm grades for each MC to see how he has taken advantage of the magazine cover and positioned himself as the big man on campus.

Top of the Class

B.o.B./Bobby Ray

There’s a lot of good to go around here. It seemed as though T.I. was handing the Grand Hustle baton over to Mr. Ray at every stop on his way to the slammer. Eminem has also been singing Ray’s praises every chance he gets. Add in a feature segment on The Carson Daly show as well as “I’ll Be In The Sky” getting play during MTV shows and we have someone fit to be a big deal for the rest of the year. If only we could get a release date on that album…

Grade: A-

KiD CuDi

“Day N’ Nite” is a bona-fide hit, people. CuDi has seemingly leapfrogged the whole G.O.O.D. roster to become Yeezy’s favorite new artist. He has an endless array of hit capabilities and The Kid is also slowly making Read the rest of this entry »

XXL pegged him one of the top in his class (& TC vouched for ‘em), but Mickey Factz isn’t waiting for some label to swoop in and take him to the mainstream promised land. Being an astute student of the game, young Mickey realized that the real money is in endorsements and has become a pitchman for Honda and the ’09 Accord. Read the rest of this entry »