Denzel Curry Looks Back on the 2016 XXL Freshman Class and Its Lasting Reach

The 10th anniversary of the 2016 XXL Freshman Class lands with a kind of built-in mythology. That lineup, which introduced Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage, Kodak Black, Lil Yachty, Denzel Curry, Anderson .Paak, Desiigner, G Herbo, Dave East and Lil Dicky, has only grown in stature as its members have gone on to shape rap in wildly different ways.

As part of the 2016 XXL Freshman Class 10-Year Anniversary series, presented in partnership with Rémy Martin and hosted by DJ Drama, XXL is revisiting the group through the lens of intention, authenticity and personal calling. The series focuses on G Herbo, Denzel Curry and Dave East, three artists whose paths have continued to reflect the reach of that moment. Rémy Martin launched a campaign last year centered on a new definition of success, and this anniversary project folds that idea into a conversation about what it meant to come up together.

DJ Drama, who handled the beat for the 2016 cyphers, sits down with Curry to talk through the class’ unlikely staying power. For Curry, the answer is pretty simple. The group still feels like a benchmark.

"Oh man, the most legendary class all around," Denzel says of his 2016 classmates. "To be honest with you, I don’t think there will be no other class that’s gon’ beat that class. However you want to look at it, we are the most successful class."

Since landing on the cover, the South Florida MC has watched his peers keep stacking milestones, inside rap and beyond it. That forward motion, and the way each member seems to be pushing the others without ever saying it outright, has remained part of the fuel for his own career.

"When the list came, and seeing 21 [Savage] go crazy, and seeing [Lil] Uzi [Vert] go crazy, and even seeing [Anderson] .Paak doing the Super Bowl [Halftime Show], it just keeps me on my toes, and it just keeps me going," Denzel says. "Yes, there is a competitive nature when it comes down to me because in hip-hop it’s embedded in that. You want to know who’s the best in the neighborhood… It’s just always gonna be a part of hip-hop."

That competition, though, is inseparable from a kind of mutual elevation. Curry makes that clear too, arguing that the success of the class fed directly into his own momentum.

"Them being successful helped me be successful," he adds. "And I’ma always give them credit because they make me better. And I just hope with my music, I’m doing the same thing ’cause I feel that’s how we hold each other up as a community."

Elsewhere in the anniversary series, Curry reflects on how the other names attached to the 2016 cover helped define the era around it, and why that roster still gets talked about like a singular chapter in modern rap. Watch Denzel Curry’s conversation with DJ Drama in the 2016 XXL Freshman Class 10-Year Anniversary series, powered by Rémy Martin, and visit the anniversary page here.

This editorial is presented by Rémy Martin.