Pop Smoke was supposed to be a XXL Freshman
Every year, XXL Magazine drops their Freshman class list, showcasing the talent in the hip-hop/r&b world. With this drop, comes the enormous amount of criticism; can't please everyone. Among the list of people considered for the XXL Freshman list, Pop Smoke was the first selected.
“One of the bittersweet memories of the 2020 Freshman process was meeting with Pop Smoke a month before his tragic death,” XXL wrote. “Pop was chosen as the first Freshman in the class, to which he happily accepted. Circumstances out of our control prevented us from including Pop as part of the cover posthumously, but to us, he is still part of the class.”
Unfortunately, the official list is without the late Canarsie, Brooklyn rapper. The drill artist was trending upward and showed no signs of a decline. It would have been amazing to see his trajectory toward outer space. Optimistically speaking, Fivio Foreign, another Brooklyn drill artist, is a part of the freshman class. Pop spoke highly of Fivio and Fivio plans on taking New York to another level and keeping the energy up.
