Here Are All 206 XXL Freshmen Over the Years

The XXL Freshman list has long been hip-hop‘s annual reading of the room — part talent showcase, part cultural ledger. For 2025 the magazine kept that ritual alive, rolling out a class that stretches from California drill and Stockton grit to Florida’s new-school bounce and the quietly magnetic moods coming out of Tennessee and the Midwest.

XXL has officially unveiled the 2025 XXL Freshman Class. The rising artists that make up the new class are just as diverse as every class before them.

On the West Coast you have Long Beach TDE lyricist Ray Vaughn, Stockton livewire EBK Jaaybo, who snagged the 10th spot, and Gelo, the Chino Hills native whose backstory includes a stint in basketball before he turned to making hits. Florida is represented by Pompano Beach’s Loe Shimmy and West Palm Beach’s 1900Rugratput, while Murfreesboro’s Samara Cyn is emerging as the Tennessee voice in this year’s crop. Chicago’s BabyChiefDoIt carries the youthful torch, and Cordele, Georgia’s Lazer Dim 700 has built a following with a lo-fi sensibility that resonates with Gen Z listeners. The East Coast shows up with Nino Paid from Landover, Md., and Eem Triplin from Johnstown, Pa., and the South and Midwest are represented by YTB Fatt of West Memphis, Ark., and Ian out of Dallas.

That coast-to-coast makeup feels classic XXL: regionally specific but curated for a national moment. The platform itself debuted in 2007, and XXL seeded that first class with names like Plies and Boosie BadAzz. Over the course of 18 magazine covers the Freshman initiative has done what few industry tastemakers consistently manage — it has lifted underground favorites into mainstream conversation and, occasionally, into superstardom.

When the list predicted breakout careers

Look back to 2010, when a then-bubbling J. Cole made the list off the back of a growing fanbase, Roc Nation backing, and his 2009 mixtape, The Warm Up. What followed is now essentially a proof point for the Freshmanecta: stadiums filled, a high-profile tour with Drake, and yes, an album that went platinum without a single featured guest.

He did once go platinum with no features.

By 2011 the list had already started to look prescient. Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller both came through the Freshman doors that year. Kendrick, now a Pulitzer Prize winner, continues to dominate culture — the piece cites his recent run with the song “Not Like Us.” Mac Miller, who died at 26, used the platform to solidify his reputation as a craftsman adored across scenes and generations.

Over the years the roster reads like a who’s-who of artists who went from buzzy to unavoidable: 21 Savage, J.I.D., Megan Thee Stallion, Jack Harlow, Gunna. The lists go on and on. There are now 194 Freshman artists in total.

Today, XXL compiles every inductee — the underground agitators, era-defining lyricists, and the genre-fluid chart dynamos — into a single gallery. For readers interested in tracing the throughlines of hip-hop’s last two decades, it’s a tidy, occasionally uncanny archive.

See Every XXL Freshman Inducted Into the Freshman Class Over the Years