This week, IDK ruffled a few feathers when he decided to drop off his own freestyle entry for the XXL Freshman class, kicking things off with a teaser in which he declared that he was the missing 10th member of the new class that was notably missing from the cover.
The freestyle, titled “Trippie Redd’s Freestyle” as it arrived the same day as Freshman Trippie Redd’s official XXL freestyle, was equal parts bars and trolling through and through. As IDK delivered on some undoubtedly hard-hitting lines, he also addressed this year’s class, throwing punches like, ““Now listen this ain’t no dissin’, this ain’t no hate/But keep it real, this is the Freshmen I didn’t make?/In other words, all of you rappers is just steak/When you fallin’ off the bone of them charts, I’m eatin’ your plate.”
Naturally, the move didn’t go over to well with some and IDK took to Instagram to address the pressure.
“The other day I dropped a song and made a lot of rappers mad at me,” he wrote in a caption. “Just wanted to address this and let people know that even tho I killed that freestyle I ended up pissing off people and respectfully I apologize in advance for saying this… I don’t give a fuck… this is rap and I love you but if you want smoke my pen is ready for whatever.”
This year’s list, like most of its predecessors in recent iterations, drew its fair share of criticism. A lot of which stemmed from the fact that only nine rappers graced the cover in what has been played out to be a “shortage” of rappers willing to grace the cover as the likes of Rich The Kid and Lil Skies revealed that they declined to take part this year. Naturally, the question falls on how such an outcome can present itself with the amount of talent
floating around—talent like IDK, maybe?