A Look at the Lasting Legacy of the 2016 XXL Freshman Class
National Treasures
Take a look back at the group that helped shape a generation: 2016 XXL Freshman Class.
As Told To: Peter A. Berry
Editor’s Note: This story appears in the Summer 2026 issue of XXL Magazine, on newsstands now and available for sale on the XXL website.
Sometimes, immortality looks like a statue. Or maybe a jersey hanging from the rafters of a sports arena. In the era of the extremely online, it can also look like a photo-realistic tattoo of a YouTube screenshot. Last year, a tattoo artist known as A Husband At War on Instagram posted a massive piece recreating the iconic 2016 XXL Freshman cypher featuring 21 Savage, Lil Uzi Vert, Kodak Black, Lil Yachty and Denzel Curry. The image spread across social media almost as fast as the cypher itself. Almost.
Since being released 10 years ago, the cypher has amassed more than 240 million views on YouTube. It’s been debated and denounced, memed and mythologized. More existentially, it’s become an avatar for 2010’s hip-hop: an era when purple hair became standard issue, virality became rap’s most valuable currency, and the divide between hip-hop and the internet dissolved for good. The 2016 XXL Freshman cover may not have started that movement, but it came to define it.
During XXL’s annual Freshman selection meetings, many artists that are asked to name their favorite class almost instinctively point to 2016. Across X and Instagram, clips from the cypher resurface every year like clockwork. There’s even a viral video of a father in the hospital showing his newborn baby the cypher on his phone. Over time, the 2016 Class has been canonized by both fans and rappers alike, celebrated for capturing 10 artists fully leaning into their individuality just as they began reshaping the sound, style and personality of modern hip-hop.
“Even back when it was happening, I was looking around like, ‘Wow, this is loaded,’” says Lil Dicky via a video chat in mid-June. “There’s a lot of people here that I find to be super-important artists, and as time went on, a lot of the people just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger simultaneously. It was also just a really unique combination of artists. A guy like Anderson is so different from a guy like 21, who’s so different from a guy like me, who’s so different from a guy like Kodak. It’s just such a rainbow of colors on the spectrum of artists.”
A part of that legacy was a lack of adherence to the old ones. From the early 2010s onward, the world had been searching for pre-irony archetypes like Drake, Kendrick Lamar or J. Cole. While the near-mandatory gangsta rap-backpacker dichotomy was gone, there was still an air of conscientious self-branding. These guys were serious. From the moment Kodak Black used his Freshman cypher verse to call out the producer for making a “sorry-a*s beat,” it was clear the 2016 Freshmen were very unserious.
Prior to 2016, the rappers who appeared on the Freshman cover looked like they were posing for an Avengers: Doomsday poster. Artists like Kodak Black, Lil Yachty, 21 Savage and Lil Uzi Vert looked and sounded like those bad kids in the back of the classroom.
With their respective purple and red dreads and narcotized melodies, Uzi and Yachty evoked all the colors of a codeine rainbow. Blending murderous street raps with a whisper-adjacent tone, 21 Savage sounded like he hoped the teacher didn’t ask him to read in front of the class. Kodak Black was a street-rap blues singer who showed off his new grill with the jubilation of a fifth grader who just got his braces off. Desiigner made his Freshman freestyle inspired by The Fairly OddParents. Lil Dicky was a sarcastic White rapper. And then there were more conventional rap stylists like G Herbo, Anderson .Paak, Dave East and Denzel Curry, the proverbial grown-ups in the studio.
The presence of the latter is the fulcrum for a visual whiplash. But that warped aesthetic was a feature rather than a fault. The rulebook for rap stardom was about to get rewritten in crayon.
Of course, the appearance of disruption isn’t the same as actual revolution, and it’s hard to conduct a rap uprising without commercial force. Through a mix of divergent styles and post-social media marketing savvy, the 2016 Class had no issues with the former.
Before being selected as a Freshman, Lil Yachty had already modeled for Kanye West’s Yeezy Season 3 showcase at Madison Square Garden. Months earlier, he’d dropped out of college, moved to New York City and bounced between couches while pursuing rap full time. His SoundCloud single “One Night” initially pulled modest numbers before exploding online after appearing in a viral comedy skit titled “When Bae Hits You With That ‘So What Are We?’” It was essentially the prototype for the TikTok “sound” phenomenon years before TikTok existed: proof that rap stardom in the internet era could emerge almost overnight, driven as much by meme culture and timing as music itself.
By the end of 2016, Yachty had partnered with Nautica and Urban Outfitters on a retro capsule collection, appeared in commercials alongside LeBron James and fully cemented his image as the self-proclaimed “King of the Teens.” He wasn’t just a rapper anymore. He was an influencer for the first true generation of rapper-influencers. As Yachty redefined routes to rap stardom, Uzi helped reimagine the musical components. A disciple of Future, Uzi injected pop punk inflections, elastic melodies and emo songwriting into neon, stadium-status trap soundscapes. By 2017, he collected platinum plaques for tracks like “You Was Right,” “Money Longer” and “XO Tour Llif3.”
Though heavily influenced by Future, Uzi became the bridge to a new generation of melodic rap stars. It’s difficult to imagine artists like XXXTentacion, Trippie Redd and Juice Wrld without the influence of Uzi’s Luv Is Rage. Lil Yachty and Lil Uzi Vert left their mark by rewiring rap’s aesthetics and pathways to stardom. Meanwhile, Kodak Black, G Herbo, Denzel Curry, Lil Dicky, Dave East and Desiigner reinforced rap’s regional foundations while reshaping them in real time.
Blending frontline Soulja Slim-street narratives with warped melodic instincts, Kodak erased much of the divide between the Old South and the internet-era South. Herbo elevated Chicago drill with a technician’s precision and emotional weight, while Curry fused the sinister DNA of Three 6 Mafia with explosive, hyper-kinetic lyricism.
Following in the footsteps of countless NY spitters before him, Dave East embodied apex freestyle craft while Lil Dicky rapped like a suped-up Andy Sandberg that actually had bars. Anderson .Paak became the experimental, fringe-underground darling and Desiigner was a viral spectacle.
While some members of the class have grown quieter, most have remained impossible to ignore. With his evolving lyricism, instinct for hooks and reputation as one of rap’s most adaptable guest artists, 21 Savage has placed 113 songs on the Billboard Hot 100. Lil Uzi Vert has landed 114, and both artists have earned at least one No. 1 single. Between unfortunate prison stints, Kodak has amassed four Hot 100 top 10 hits and arguably established himself as one of the most emotionally affecting songwriters of his generation.
Lil Yachty, once dismissed as a symbol of the neon-colored “mumble rap” movement, is now nearing 30 and has steadily evolved into one of rap’s most unpredictable creatives. He’s traded bars comfortably with Drake and J. Cole, rapped over Statik Selektah production, helped craft a defining anthem for City Girls and even released an entire project inspired by the sound and culture of Michigan rap. He’s also landed 24 songs on the Billboard Hot 100.
Meanwhile, Anderson .Paak has evolved from a left-field Freshman selection into one of the most decorated and musically versatile artists of his era. Since appearing on the cover, he’s won nine Grammys, earned 15 nominations, formed the Grammy-winning duo Silk Sonic alongside Bruno Mars and successfully bridged rap, funk, soul and R&B in a way few artists of his generation have managed. Years after filming his earliest videos in Chicago’s housing projects, G Herbo remains one of the city’s premier lyricists, stacking multiple platinum plaques while earning several top 10 entries on the Billboard 200.
Lil Dicky may not have remained as musically prolific as some of his Freshman peers, but he still managed to score viral hits before successfully pivoting into television with Dave, the critically acclaimed FX series loosely based on his own rise in rap. Meanwhile, Dave East has continued to carry the torch for gritty New York lyricism while expanding into acting, most notably through his role in the TV show Wu-Tang: An American Saga.
The 2016 XXL Freshman Class’ statistical footprint is Gundam-sized. On average, members of the class pull in 16.9 million monthly Spotify listeners. To date, the 2016 Freshmen have earned 236 RIAA-certified gold and platinum plaques, more than 280 Billboard Hot 100 entries, and 32 Grammy nominations to go along with 10 Grammy wins. It’s the résumé of a pop-cultural force that proved to be as collectively innovative as it was commercially and critically successful.
More abstractly, the 2016 XXL Freshman Class helped reshape how audiences consumed and processed rap music. From that point forward, the distance between blue hair, Instagram virality and melodic street rap became virtually nonexistent. Superstardom could arrive through something as arbitrary as the right song appearing in the right corner of the internet; all an artist really needed was the instinct to strike at the perfect moment.
In the years since, rap stardom has become increasingly shapeshifting and borderless, capable of looking and sounding like almost anything. The 2016 Class became one of its most influential blueprints.
“It meant something to me because I always thought it was really cool, but I didn’t think it was going to be the biggest Freshman cover or the most momentous,” said Yachty over video chat in June. “But I understand it based upon the time, which is 2016, the change in streaming services, the change in social media, period. And then the change in hip-hop. It’s like a bunch of elements that make this one cover so special.”
Irreverent and unpredictable, the 2016 XXL Freshman Class blazed trails while inventing entirely new ways to blaze them. Ten years after their unveiling, they stand as the goofballs who grew up, the little bros-turned-legends and class clowns turned corporations. For fans who came of age alongside them, revisiting the 2016 cypher can feel a little like revisiting themselves.
More than likely, those fans will eventually drift back to the comments section beneath the class’ most indelible cypher. And every few dozen comments, they’ll probably spot a familiar question: “Who’s here in 2026?”
Apparently, an entire generation.
The 2026 XXL Freshman issue is available to purchase here now as well as merch. In addition to interviews with the 2026 XXL Freshman Class and DJ Drama, there are also conversations with T.I., Swae Lee, Sexyy Red, Young M.A, Cash Cobain, Skilla Baby, Lil Tjay, high-profile defense attorney Brian Steel, singer-songwriter Odeal and more, plus a look back at what the 2025 XXL Freshman Class has been doing and explore the cultural impact of the 2016 XXL Freshman Class and where its members are today.
See the 2016 XXL Freshman Class
