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Here is an interesting article Confusion posted up on Pigeons and Planes grading Hip Hop’s “Freshman Class.” Big names on the list include: Wale, Kid Cudi, Drake, and Mickey Factz. Confusion, a bit more au courant in the Freshman Class than I am, also grades J.Cole, Frank Ramz (contributor to his blog), Charles Hamilton (chicks can kick his ass, I hear), B.o.B. (or Bobby Ray now? He just sounds like he’s Hannah Montana’s Dad now…), Fuze the MC, and Izza Kizza.
Good article all around, but I do feel some talent (or whatever) is missing from this list. Maybe Asher Roth, Wiz Khalifa among others. Maybe there’s room for some aggressive expansion.
Read the Article Here
I’d never heard of Izza Kizza before this, but that track on the site was sick! Downloading both of his mixtapes right now.
http://smokingsection.uproxx.com/TSS/2009/06/midterm-grades-xxl-class-of-2009
midterm grades : XXL Class of 2009 Emcees
Good reviews overall but I do have to say the scoring seems a bit generous. I have enjoyed keeping up with the “new class” of MC’s coming up but I feel like they may be slightly over-hyped (at least some of them anyway.)
I feel like B.o.B has potential to be great, especially after seeing his live performance of “Yesterday” which sounds like it will be a great song. I’m also a big Kid Cudi and Wale fan, although im not sure what Wale’s move from mixtapes to a major album will be like. I feel like his style is not to be tampered with and im hoping a major release wont take away from the goodness we’ve heard from Wale thus far. In my opinion that is exactly what happened with Asher, loved his mixtape can’t even listen to his album (aside from the bonus track he did with Slick Rick on the UK version.)
Also I don’t see the huge hype behind Drake. I think he is nice, and has some good songs, but overall he doesn’t command my attention as a listener like B.o.B, Cudi, Wale, or even Charles Hamilton (even though he comes off as pretty corny overall I dig a lot of his songs) do. I am Canadian so it’s nice to see a Canadian MC getting so much love but does he deserve it?