Source: XXL
XXL Magazine‘s Freshman list has been the claim to fame for new rappers since it started in 2007. With people like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Chance The Rapper, and Future all being spotted by the mag early, it puts a fire under certain artist’s letting them know that some industry big wigs thing they’re the next big thing.
While a few artists have turned it down in the past–like Drake and Nicki Minaj–most rappers, whether they wanna admit it or not, wear their spot on the cover as a source of pride. But that’s not what Nav wants you to believe.
The Toronto rapper was seemingly left off of this year’s upcoming Freshman Class, and has begun an entire promo run dissing the magazine. It started with him tweeting things like, “I would never show up for the Freshman List cuz I don’t need their approval”–but that was only after he released a song AND announced a tour named after the XXL staple.
For someone who is claiming to take no value in whether or not he makes a list–which, let’s remember, he didn’t–it seems pretty odd to name an entire tour after something you deem useless. He goes on to post on Twitter and Instagram about how artists need to make music for themselves, not anyone else.
And this is where things get really odd. After his rant about the magazine as a whole, Nav then posts a photo of Vanessa Satten, XXL‘s Editor-in-Chief, laughing over the fact that she’s the one who decides who makes the cut.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BghdX1fAeTQ/?hl=en&taken-by=nav
People have expressed their disdain in the past for a white woman to be at the helm of a hip hop magazine, but that doesn’t excuse Nav’s clear misogyny when putting her on blast via social media. Dissing an entire magazine and business is one thing, but posting a picture of the woman who runs it proves that he doesn’t take her or her job seriously. It goes without saying that if a man was Editor-in-Chief, Nav wouldn’t have felt so comfortably publicly harassing him about it.
https://twitter.com/SowmyaK/status/975970545039761408
The bias in hip-hop is clear, and the respect level for women at the top just isn’t there–at least in this case.
It’s clear here that Nav is using his disdain over not making the Freshman list as a publicity stunt, but him trying to convince the world this is something he doesn’t care about is clearly quite the opposite.
You can catch the actual members of the 2018 Freshman Class to be announced sometime this summer.
Nav Discredits XXL’s Freshman List And Highlights The Music Industry’s Misogyny In The Process was originally published on globalgrind.com
