
There was a time, back when rap blogging was making the block hot, that XXL Mag recruited every decent bloggah (and DJ Sickamore) in the game to write a regular column for them. Even my good self contributed two separate guest residencies out of the kindness of my heart. This resulted in the hilarious Dallas Penn vs Noz dust up, as well as a number of classic Bol articles. These days, the print version only publishes a few times a year and the website is filled with incisive articles about which rapper has the best eyebrow piercings and ‘Ten Ways To Tell You Just Got Burnt…in your pants’. Here’s my in-depth review of this year’s ‘Freshman of the Year’ according to XXL Mag, based on my highly scientific method of watching their five most popular videos and not much else.