Ian's performance for his "XXL Freshman Freestyle" is getting expectedly polarizing reactions on social media. "Walk in that b*tch like, 'How the hell y'all doing? How y'all feeling today?' / Ready to turn myself in down at the station, I made a killing today," he kicks off the performance. The outlet announced the full class for its 2025 Freshman issue last month with a ton of interesting choices.
When the publication shared Ian's freestyle on YouTube, fans flocked to the comments section with hot takes. "Real talk i thought this freestyle was gonna be ass but if you listen to what he's saying he's actually spitting some garbage," one user joked. Another wrote: "Everyone hyping it but it went from a trash preview to a mid freestyle lmao. Ya give him too much credit."
Others came to Ian's defense. "This was actually fire yall was hating before hearing the full freestyle," one fan commented. One more added: "Ian is just as good as many rappers in his class. Y'all need to stop pretending like you suddenly care about 'lyrics' and 'rhyme schemes' if Carti is your favorite rapper."
XXL Freshman List
As for the rest of the XXL Freshman Class for 2025, it includes: 1900Rugrat, BabyChiefDoIt, EBK Jaaybo, Eem Triplin, GELO (LiAngelo Ball), LAZER DIM 700, Loe Shimmy, Nino Paid, Ray Vaughn, Samara Cyn, and YTB Fatt.
In his interview with XXL for the honor, Ian brought up the 2016 XXL Freshman Class as a major inspiration to him. “This is like, to me, it feels like a very legendary thing in hip-hop. So, I’m honored, first of all, to be able to be here and do this. Just excited because I like a lot of the people who also showed up here. It’s a really beautiful thing to be a part of for me," he said. "[The 2016 XXL Freshman Class] was massive for me because I listened to all of them. Really just SoundCloud stuff. I feel that’s a legendary one."
Read More: Who Is India Love? The OG Instagram Baddie
