For the eleventh year (nearly consecutively, I might add as I pat myself on the back), I’ve inexplicably been tracking the careers of the ten artists that made up XXL’s Freshman Class of 2012. The Freshman Class, for those of you who stopped caring after reading the name of that particular magazine, which still exists but for whom, really?, is a list of rappers that the publication believes to be, in the parlance once used within our chosen genre, “up next”, and given how hip hop, as with any musical genre, has been overtaken by younger generations of artists with little to no reverence for what came before them, each successive year’s roster has been filled with increasingly ridiculous names (both in level of talent and their actual stage names) that could only appeal to the young teenage audience who don’t even know what magazines are.
As always, here’s a much younger Max explaining this particular side project for the newbies who have stumbled into HHID over the past year for whatever reason (the Patreon, RandoMax Radio, the Twitter feed, the Facebook page, whatever I have links for in the sidebar, etc.):
“Ever since I made the horrible decision to maintain a 7-Up-esque series following the rappers chosen for [the XXL Freshman Class] in 2012, keeping tabs on each of the ten artists and their respective careers since gracing the magazine’s cover, I’ve found myself struggling to both:
(a) still care, in most cases, and
(b) find music representative of the growth one would assume each man (and one woman) had undertaken in order to organically prolong their professional lifespans.”
Do any of the featured artists still have something to say? Are any of them still making music worth listening to? And finally, is any of this enough to justify this series continuing past this entry? Read through to find out!
But before skipping straight to finding out how a lack of progress from certain artists will impact the series moving forward, why not suffer as I did and catch up from the very beginning? This way you can also track the progress of the ten lucky artists who’ve had to put up with me being very critical about their respective careers for the past decade, and who knows, you may be in a different headspace today and might want to know how I felt about Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” back when it was still popular.
Part I (2012)
Part II (2013)
Part III (2014)
Part IV (2015)
Part V (2017) (I had skipped the 2016 installment due to a blog hiatus and was making up for it here)
Part VI (2018) (This is the 2017 installment running five months later than intended)
Part VII (2018) (And now we’re back on track)
Part VIII (2019)
Part IX (2020)
Part X (2021)
Below are my thoughts on songs each represented artist released between December 1, 2021 and November 30, 2022.
As always, thanks for reading!
MACHINE GUN KELLY (formerly MGK, formerly MACHINE GUN KELLY, formerly MGK, formerly MACHINE GUN KELLY, formerly MGK, formerly MACHINE GUN KELLY)
What I wrote last time: “....MGK will always be seen as… the could’ve been but never-was that failed to master two musical genres instead of just the one. At least there’s still Hollywood, right?…”
Song I listened to this time around: "drug dealer” (featuring Lil Wayne)
I chose one of the only tracks off of Good Mourning’s Colson Baker’s 2022 album, Mainstream Sellout, to feature an actual rapper in an effort to evaluate the guy based on the reason he appears on this list in the first place and not as a singer in the alternative space who believes himself to be weed, at least whenever Megan Fox is involved. No such luck, folks: even though “drug dealer” does feature Lil Wayne, I had forgotten (read: blocked out the fact) that Weezy has also dabbled in the rock arena, and as such, he backslides into that role in lieu of laying down polarizing bars about cunnilingus, as he would normally do. MGK’s song revolves around his perfect, well, “drug dealer,” a woman who stays keeping pills and other illicit substances on her person, and it goes about as well as you’d expect. While Baker doesn’t seem to feel that his relationship with his plug needs to segue into something more (so he likely isn’t singing about Fox here, is what I’m saying), Wayne feels no such boundaries, referring to her as “my ho” right off the bat and boasting about “[waking] up numb in her”, which is kind of icky, but this isn’t about Wayne. Machine Gun Kelly (who, incredibly, is still signed to Bad Boy Records and may very well be the only reason the label continues to exist) and his immersion into the pop-alt-rock hybrid musical genre doesn’t make for the most original sentiments, as a lot of “drug dealer” sounds more like shock value for shock value’s sake and not that the man legitimately acknowledges he has a problem, but he’s done worse. Doesn’t seem entirely fair that we keep covering him if he’s essentially done with hip hop (which, if Mainstream Sellout and his blossoming Hollywood career is any indication, he gave up long ago, once it stopped serving him), but the man seems to work a lot, so based on that alone, it seems like he isn’t going anywhere, for better and for worse.
DANNY BROWN
What I wrote last time: “…it’s easy to discern why we’re all standing by waiting for what else [Brown] has up his sleeve...”
Song I listened to this time around: "Winter”
Daniel “Danny Brown” Sewell has managed to maintain his status as a cult favorite even with his diminished musical output, as the man has used the past few years to help his fellow Bruiser Brigade crewmates rather than advance his own solo career. I have been grasping at straws trying to find a recent appearance to use for this ongoing series, because what better way to chart an artist’s progress than to see what he’s been up to lately, and it has been fucking difficult, you two. Daniel did do me one favor in 2022 by releasing the standalone track “Winter”, however. (This song may or may not make it on to his next planned project, Quarenta, which is supposed to drop next year, but I’ll believe that when it happens.) This self-produced effort features two lengthy verses atop a dramatic instrumental, but his boasts-n-bullshit are far from heavy here, especially as they are delivered in his higher, squeakier pitch. The version I listened to sounded fine, but unmastered, with the bass sounding blown out and the music occasionally taking the spotlight away from Daniel, but the man himself was in fine form, and I remain excited to see what else he and his friends have up their shared sleeve in the new year. To be honest, though, “Winter” was a bit underwhelming when compared to the other songs of his I’ve used for this series in the past – hopefully that, nor the fact that his output has considerably dwindled as of late, isn’t any indication of his star finally beginning to dim.
KID INK
What I wrote last time: “...he’s done much worse...”
Song I listened to this time around: “Big Burna” (featuring Wiz Khalifa)
Brian “Kid Ink” Collins, who still tours the country as Chr*s Br*wn Zero, lends his sing/rap talents, as they were, to “Big Burna”, an ISM-produced trifle about weed and women, and it is just as horrible as whatever popped into your mind while you were reading that description. The subject matter itself isn’t much of a stretch for Kid Ink, which might be the problem here: he’s taking the path of least resistance, refusing to challenge himself in favor of a relatively easy payday, and that is why nobody’s going to remember the guy in twenty years, or possibly sooner if the apocalypse comes before then. The underlying music is some pop radio nonsense that wants to pretend itself to be club-ready, but absolutely nobody’s going to want to listen to this shit while drunk and/or high during a night out, so it was clearly designed for an audience of one. Or two, I suppose, if guest Wiz Khalifa, also no stranger to this type of song, chooses to listen to his own work. Khalifa’s verse on here is terrible, undoubtedly, and yet he still manages to rap circles around his gracious host, even with asinine bars such as, “You a lesbian, [but] tonight you want dick or what?” The thing is, that bar much more memorable (for the wrong reasons, but whatever) than anything Kid Ink allegedly said during “Big Burna,” and I say “allegedly” because I just listened to the song and have no actual proof that he ever performed on here, that’s how little of an impact he’s made. Kid Ink is headed in the wrong direction, which isn’t surprising. What has shocked me is that he’s still hanging in there after all these years, although how much longer he’ll remain relevant to lists such as this remains to be seen.
FUTURE
What I wrote last time: “..., the man sounds like he hasn’t given a fuck in years, but that’s not a quality that makes for good music, especially when everything he records these days plays like the same song on repeat...”
Song I listened to this time around: "I’m On One” (featuring Drake)
I’ll admit, I picked this one because I’m amused by the fact that Aubrey now has two different songs in his catalog entitled “I’m On One”. Unlike the DJ Khaled collaboration that was really just a regifted Drake song, however, Nayvadius Wilburn’s “I’m On One” is far less dramatic (if heavier on the trap drums). The concept of being “on one” also seems to just fit Future more, you know? Because he always sounds like he’s high as shit, I mean. Over a Torey Montana instrumental that sounds better when turned up loud in your car than it does listening to it on your phone, Future boasts and bullshits about drugs, money, and the drugs he can buy with all of his money, while Aubrey is, as usual, more laser-focused on getting some ass while dropping references to various brand names and sports figures so that he sounds “cool”. The Future that appears on “I’m On One” sounds surprisingly aggressive, although still zoned out, and as a result his performance isn’t quite as annoying to me, which helps explain how the man’s managed to last this long at the top of his Freshman Class (even though Macklemore has won more acclaim, which is an unfortunate truth that we should acknowledge right now just to get it out of the way). He only talks about a handful of things, but he continues to pick appealing beats to back his words, and given that we are talking about music here, that buys Future far more cache with me. I may not be thrilled about the outcome here, but “I’m On One” isn’t a bad song, really. I do believe that Future has far too lengthy a back catalog for me to ever convert into a fa, however. The perils of being a rap artist in 2022 with near-unlimited access to the resources one would need to record their every waking thought, I suppose.
ROSCOE DASH
What I wrote last time: “…There are other jobs out in the real world… although I doubt [Dash[ truly knows when to walk away…”
Song I listened to this time around: None.
That’s right, I didn’t listen to anything from the rapper that calls himself Roscoe Dash in 2022, and that is because there was nothing to listen to from the rapper that calls himself Roscoe Dash in 2022. Literally. I searched high and low on the Interweb and couldn’t find even a guest feature credit. His apparent last recorded effort, a non-album loosey entitled “YES I CAN”, came out in 2021, and I remember writing about it even if I can’t remember anything else. Dash has been the artist most likely to be left off of future installments in this series for fucking years now, but whatever his reasons for his lack of output may be (lack of creative juices flowing, perhaps, or maybe his days are occupied with familial or business matters, or it could just be that driving his Lyft takes up far more time than he had ever dreamed it would), my own reasons for keeping him with this group are quickly disappearing. Which is why I’m instituting a new rule this time around: if he goes another year without offering up anything for me to write about, than Roscoe Dash will officially be designated the first artist from the 2012 XXL Freshman Class to have flunked out of the industry, which, in the grand scheme of things, would put him in some terrific company because the music industry chews people up and spits them out regularly and there is no shame in stepping away from the microphone in favor of something that offers more in the way of stability and perhaps health benefits. But once he “flunks out”, he’ll be removed from future installments, because there will be no real point in continuing to cover him. I said what I said.
HOPSIN
What I wrote last time: “…He knows how to work his gimmick to his advantage, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to creating music that listeners of all ages can relate to…”
Song I listened to this time around: None.
That’s correct, I couldn’t find anything from Hopsin to listen to this year either, but unlike the Roscoe Dash situation, my read on this is far more generous: the guy has just been more focused on all the other shit that he does, and while he’s likely recorded music this year, he just didn’t see fit to release any of it, which is his prerogative. Not everything an artist creates is intended for the masses, of course, nor does everything need to be critiqued as such. I will say that his absence this year feels like the byproduct of a man who once used shock value in his lyrics as a crutch now sensing that the current musical landscape won’t necessarily support that shtick anymore, especially with how bonkers backwards the world at large has become – kind of difficult to “shock” anybody when you have politicians and asshole billionaires saying the quiet parts out loud at all hours of the day, am I right? While I in no way buy that Dash has a backlog of unreleased songs on his hard drive, I am more inclined to believe that we’ll hear something from Hopsin in 2023, so this year he gets a pass. Same rules apply to him, however – I won’t hesitate to drop the guy from this class for poor attendance. And with that, hopefully the school puns have now petered out for this piece.
MACKLEMORE
What I wrote last time: “...His career isn’t anywhere near over, but he knows his place in hip hop, which is more than could be said for a lot of these motherfuckers out here…”
Song I listened to this time around: "Chant” (with Tones and I)
“Chant” is exactly the type of song an artist with a wholly distorted view of their place within our chosen genre would release when attempting to mount a “comeback”, which I place in between quotation marks because Benjamin “Macklemore” Haggerty hadn’t actually gone anywhere. I realize that is a direct contradiction of what I wrote about the man just last year, but hearing the opening bars on “Chant” (“They told me that I vanished / They told me that I had ‘it’ / They told me that I’m gone / I told ‘em, ‘Don’t panic’” – no, seriously, who the fuck is “they”?) is akin to a glance at an alternate universe, one where the man pumped out continuous hits, both with and without frequent production collaborator Ryan Lewis. I won’t strip away the man’s work ethic, of course: Macklemore is a product of Seattle’s underground hip hop scene, a fact he never allows anybody to forget for even a moment. And I suppose it is possible that his opening four bars are more in reference to the time that he OD’d but wasn’t ready for his life to end. That rationale doesn’t hold up for the rest of the Budo-produced track, however, which approaches Marshall Mathers-levels of self-importance, up to and including featuring guest crooner Tones and I, who I want so badly to refer to as Tones on Tail (real ones know), on its hook (because Eminem loves himself a pop star on a chorus, you see), whose performance seems rather rote until the emoting becomes a straight-up passion play behind the microphone. She isn’t bad, and she’ll likely inspire someone to do… well, something, I’m sure, but her hook makes zero sense when combined with Macklemore’s three verses, all of which find the man struggling to rationalize why he deserves a spot in hip hop before outright demanding one, which, I will say, puts him in the same league as pretty much every other rapper in the industry. Take what’s yours, and whatnot. “I was supposed to be a one-hit ringer / Now I got too many rings and not enough fingers,” Ben offers up, and while I certainly can’t remember the man having more than ten smash-hit singles, maybe The Stranger has nominated him for multiple local awards, I don’t know. Regardless, Macklemore sounds just as cocky and sure of himself as he did on his breakthrough single, “Thrift Shop”, so even though “Chant” is far less amusing, hip hop has room enough for everyone, so why not save the man a spot? He isn’t hurting anybody, anyway. Let the baby have his bottle.
DON TRIP
What I wrote last time: “...better than most of the stuff I’ve listened to throughout this series from Chris, so we shouldn’t count him out just yet...”
Song I listened to this time around: "Pilot Episode” (featuring Starlito)
“Pilot Episode” is the opening salvo off of Christopher Season 2, Don Trip’s 2022 project, and although he talks of only doing “another couple records, then I’m signing off,” he certainly doesn’t sound like he’s run out of steam here. In fact, this might be the most engaging version of Trip that I’ve heard doing this series. Not to say that anything is said here that sounds altogether fresh and unique, of course – this is simple boasts-n-bullshit, nothing more – but the way the bars are delivered signifies that Don Trip has actively evolved during the past decade, or at the very least he hasn’t been resistant to the concept. Over a catchy horn-heavy instrumental from Chefry Kitchen and DT The Kidd, the man born Christopher Wallace (no, seriously) unloads his braggadocio with the level of swagger only a rap veteran who truly no longer gives a fuck can pull off, and he sounds pretty good. His Step Brothers partner-in-rhyme Starlito handles the second half of the track and does alright, his slower flow not exactly the best fit for the musical backing, but Don Trip is the focus here, and to his credit, he seems fully aware of that fact. He's starting to become one of the things I look forward to the most when it comes to revisiting this series every year.
IGGY AZALEA
What I wrote last time: “...she needs to stop…”
Song I listened to this time around: None.
Huh, maybe she took my advice? Not bloody likely. You see, back in 2021, Amethyst Kelly announced that her album, The End of an Era, fulfilled her contractual obligations and was to be her final musical project, as she planned to step away from the industry entirely and focus on other creative outlets. Which is all well and good: Iggy Azalea was sounding less than enthused in her actual songs anyway (not that she ever came across as super excited to be here, having taken the spot from another far more talented artist), so maybe a shift in the narrative would be beneficial for everybody involved. We don’t ever deserve nice things, of course, so Azalea announced this year that she was back to recording music, but at least for my sake, none of whatever she’s done so far ever made it out of the studio in 2022, so I have nothing to go off. It’s been my experience that a rapper such as Iggy, one who embraces fads and trends instead of being true to herself and hoping that the audience seeks her out directly, would be doomed to fall: sure, she has a couple of hit singles under her belt (the main one buoyed primarily by the presence of co-writer Charli XCX, a hill I’m going to die on), which is more than most artists ever get to enjoy, but her pivot to EDM came relatively early in her career, almost as though she was fully cognizant of her own shelf life, which doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in one’s stans, no matter what they might delude themselves into thinking. While Iggy gets a pass this year. I wouldn’t be shocked to see her name being the one scrubbed from this list instead of either Roscoe Dash’s or Hopsin’s, since I fear she ran out of things to talk about on a record years ago. Ah well.
FRENCH MONTANA
What I wrote last time: “...French Montana is DJ Khaled if DJ Khaled also rapped on his songs. Also, this song sucks and proves that the man doesn’t really care about how his music actually sounds …”
Song I listened to this time around: "Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts” (featuring Chinx)
No such luck with Karim “French Montana” Kharbouch, who isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, I’m afraid. “Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts” is a track from the man’s 2022 project Montega, his collaboration with producer Harry Fraud, and neither half of that equation knocks it out of the park, Fraud’s instrumental sounding fine but melodramatic for no reason (tacking on an extended sound bite from a younger Dionne Warwick tends to do that), while the best Frenchy has to offer is a line that is essentially the title of the song. (He also threatens to “NFT your casket”, whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean.) The late Chinx Drugz does a better job here, and he wasn’t even around to record to the instrumental, which sounds like I’m being a dick, and I am, but seriously, Montana hasn’t really tried in quite a long while at this point. Dude coasts off of charisma and his deep contacts list alone, and at some point that’s going to bite him on the ass. Coke rap certainly hasn’t become a taboo subject: hell, it’s objectively bigger than it's ever been, thanks to the likes of Pusha T and Freddie Gibbs. But French Montana, a guy who has released some very catchy-ass songs in the past, is looking at the music industry with tunnel vision, convinced that he doesn’t need to update his formula in order to remain relevant, and I have to say, he’s fucking incorrect. “Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts” might have sounded much better had it been released in 2016, but taken in 2022’s context, it’s a lazy effort that’s indicative of just how little thought he puts into his work, whipping up product for the money rather than the love. Which he’s entitled to do. But that doesn’t mean we have to continue giving a fuck.
-Max
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