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The 2021 XXL Freshman cover has arrived! Each year, rap fans wait and speculate in anticipation to find out which artists made the coveted list, mostly so we can all speculate and wait on their activities for the future — or debate whether they deserved placement.

But this post is just to let our readers know who all made it. This year’s cover includes plenty of Uproxx favorites like Blxst, DDG, and Pooh Shiesty, as well as 2020 fan favorites like 42 Dugg, Flo Milli, and Toosii. There’s plenty of female representation on this year’s list, with Coi Leray, Lakeyah, and Rubi Rose holding it down for the ladies. And breakout artists Iann Dior and Morray round out the list after some attention-grabbing features introduced them to a whole new audience.

This year’s list looks pretty well-rounded, as the breakout artists included have all made impressive debuts, charted highly, or garnered plenty of viral attention in the past year. Many regions, races, and styles are represented, from Fayetteville, North Carolina, to South Central, Los Angeles, with many of the entries hailing from oft-overlooked origins when it comes to hip-hop such as Milwaukee, WI, Lexington, KY, and Corpus Christi, TX.

Last year’s cover included breakouts like Chika, Jack Harlow, Mulatto, and Rod Wave. And for those who didn’t make it, there’s always next year — or the chance for a surprise breakout.

Meanwhile, XXL is gearing up for the usual slate of Freshman programming, including freestyles, Cyphers, and profiles on these up-and-coming artists. Stay tuned.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Bleachers‘ upcoming album Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night may be a dance-ready ode to joy, but it first began while Jack Antonoff was in a dark place. The musician/producer recently announced his upcoming third studio album with the jubilant track “Stop Making This Hurt,” and he now says the record was born out of his painful breakup with Lena Dunham.

Antonoff and Dunham broke things off in 2018 following a five-year relationship. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Antonoff said he was feeling “darkness and depression” at the time, but began writing Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night after finally seeing the light:

“I was writing for a long time. The early process was, I got out of a relationship [with Lena Dunham], and I felt an amazing amount of darkness and depression. I fell in there. But the moment it starts to open up and you see a piece of light is a really amazing place to write from. There’s a lot of desperation in these songs, and I realized, ‘Oh, that’s the same feeling of being from New Jersey, that desperation of wanting out, of I want to break through into another part of my life.’ So that’s when I started to see the framework. And then a really amazing thing happened when the pandemic hit. It was like the final piece of the album, because everything I’m talking about in the songwriting is about sort of dreaming of a next place.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Antonoff mentioned that he always plays his music to Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, and Lorde for approval before finalizing it, but this time around, Bruce Springsteen also stepped in. “The best records are made with a small group of people that really believe in something,” he said. “My group is like me, my manager, my A&R person who doesn’t even work on my label anymore — he’s just a really close person to me. Then my family, and some artists like Lana. I always play some for Ella [Lorde]. Taylor, of course. Bruce [Springsteen] is deeply in the group. I played him the whole record the other day. We took a drive and listened to it.”

Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night is out 7/30 via RCA. Pre-order it here.

There’s no bigger beer in the world than the classic lager. Even if it feels like IPAs are everywhere, the sales of those niche beers don’t even come close to the power of the lager on a global scale. And while there are many different types of lager to choose from, the adjunct lager is the most popular, by far.

Very quickly, “adjunct” simply means the lager is made with barley and corn or rice as adjunct (added) ingredients in the base of the beer. This makes the beer cheaper to produce by providing more accessible sugars from less expensive grains, which the yeasts then convert into alcohol. Popular adjunct lagers are known for being super light, crisp, clean, dry, and only subtly hoppy, which all adds up to these beers being very refreshing.

No wonder they shine during the summer months. Because if we’re being honest, as much as we’re all geeked on craft brews and whatever style the hype machine is raving about lately, seeing a Bud, Coors, Miller, Corona, or Pabst at a backyard party is nothing to dread. Especially when the temperature crosses 85-degrees. The numbers don’t lie.

The blind taste test below is based on aroma and flavor alone. We didn’t want labels messing with our rankings. We’ve also thrown in a ringer to see it if stands out. We added a classic Heineken — which is a European pale lager — to the mix, to see if the old-school recipe of only barley, hops, yeast, and water is noticeably different than the corn and rice fueled American and Mexican adjunct lagers.

Part 1: The Taste

Taste 1:

Tasting Notes:

Upon the first sniff, I notice a fairly skunky smell. After that come hints of bananas, sweet malts, and subtle, floral hops. The flavor is surprisingly bitter but somehow palatable. There are more banana-like notes and just a hint of malt sweetness.

Overall, this has an exciting flavor profile that I would definitely come back to.

Taste 2:

Tasting Notes:

This beer smells very cheap. There’s a lot of corn and bread on the nose and not much else. There are maybe some mild, floral hops, but that’s pushing it. The flavor is in line with the nose. I noticed a lot of corny sweetness that is almost overwhelming paired with hints of barley and some floral notes.

All in all, it’s not a very memorable sip.

Taste 3:

Tasting Notes:

I was surprised at the complexity of this beer’s nose. I smelled a bready sweetness, fresh corn, wet grass, and just a hint of floral hops. The palate was similar to the nose with a mix of freshly baked bread, flowers, citrus, and subtle bitter hops at the very end. Though, all of the flavors were fairly muted.

Still, this was … a decent beer that I would drink again. Nothing to write home about, but not unpleasant.

Taste 4:

Tasting Notes:

I took a few moments to breathe in the aromas. I noticed a slight corn smell along with sweet malts, and just a hint of floral hops. The palate is swirling with a good combination of sweet corn and rich caramel malts along with a slightly bitter, piney finish. The finish is crisp, dry, and refreshing.

Taste 5:

Tasting Notes:

There isn’t much going on with this beer. Honestly, all I smell is corn and metal. It smells like a cheap beer. The flavor is overly sweet with cloying sugary sweet corn.

Honestly, this beer tastes like it’s supposed to be a corn-flavored beer. It is refreshing and light, but not much else.

Taste 6:

Tasting Notes:

Breathing in this beer’s aromas, you can immediately tell it’s an adjunct lager. I noticed smells of fresh-baked bread, wet grass, sweet, almost corn-like malts, and subtle floral hops. The flavor is similar to the aromas with earthy grass, and bread with sweet malts taking center stage. The only difference is the slight hoppy bitterness at the very end.

While not the most complex beer ever, this is highly drinkable and surprisingly flavorful.

Taste 7:

Tasting Notes:

A lot is going on with this beer’s nose. I smelled caramel malts, crisp apples, and fresh, sweet corn that ended with a nice floral scent. The flavor is all corn sweetness, caramel, subtle hops presence, and a very welcoming fruity flavor. It all ended in a smooth, crisp crescendo that I won’t soon forget.

So far, this is my favorite sip.

Taste 8:

Tasting Notes:

This beer smells kind of… stale. The first scents I noticed were subtle sweet malts and maybe some floral notes. Sadly, it was all kind of muted as it smelled like an old beer that had been opened and left out in the sun for a few hours.

The flavor was much better than the aromas with a good deal of sweet malts and very light citrus notes. But that’s about all that’s going on with this one.

Part 2: The Ranking

8. Busch — Taste 5

ABV: 4.3%

Average Price: $6 (six-pack)

The Beer:

Busch made this list because it’s a classic, cheap, refreshing, no-frills beer. The beer made simply with hops, malted barley, corn, and water.

Bottom Line:

There’s nothing wrong with Busch. It’s a cheap, easy-to-drink beer. But there are definitely no bells and whistles with this one. It tastes the way you imagine super cheap beer tastes in your mind.

7. Corona Extra –Taste 8

ABV: 4.6%

Average Price: $11 (six-pack)

The Beer:

Corona is a classic beach beer. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that it’s the greatest warm weather beer of all time. The brew is made with water, yeast, malted barley, corn, hops, vitamin C, and a food stabilizer.

Bottom Line:

Corona Extra is fine on its own if you want to drink a fairly flavorless beer that you can crush on a hot day. You need to add a lime wedge though. Otherwise, it’s pretty bland with very few redeeming qualities.

6. Coors Banquet — Taste 2

ABV: 5%

Average Price: $6 (six-pack)

The Beer:

Coors Banquet beer, as the name suggests, is the kind of beer you want to pair with a grilled, likely meat-filled, meal. This five percent lager is brewed using Rocky Mountain water and Moravian barley. But it also contains hop extract and corn syrup. So… there’s that.

Bottom Line:

You don’t crack open a Coors to compare notes on its broad flavor profile. You open one to drink it fast while you stand beside a grill in your backyard. It works perfectly for this purpose.

5. Budweiser — Taste 3

ABV: 5%

Average Price: $6 (six-pack)

The Beer:

Budweiser is known as the “King of Beers.” Of course, that’s just Mad Men-level advertising. Sure, it might be one of the most popular beers (hence the moniker), but it’s far from the most elevated. In essence, it’s a crisp, thirst-quenching, one-dimensional beer made with malted barley and rice alongside yeast, hop extract, and (what feels like a lot of) water.

Bottom Line:

Budweiser is popular because it appeals to passive beer drinkers. You don’t have to care about beer to drink Budweiser. You just drink it and get a refreshing buzz with no judgment or artifice.

4. Heineken — Taste 1

ABV: 5%

Average Price: $15 (six-pack)

The Beer:

Heineken is also among the most popular beers in the world. This Dutch pale lager comes in its classic green bottle adorned with a red star. The beer in the bottle is made with hops, malted barley, and water with Heineken’s signature fruity “A-Yeast” strain.

Bottom Line:

As you can see by my tasting notes, this one stood out for being so distinct from the others. Definitely a solid way to switch up your BBQ beer routine.

3. Pabst Blue Ribbon — Taste 6

ABV: 4.7%

Average Price: $6 (six-pack)

The Beer:

This crisp and very refreshing beer gets its name due to an award it claims to have won way back in the 1890s. Whether this is actually true doesn’t matter. This iconic beer stood the test of time and remains just as beloved today thanks to a recipe of 2 and 6-Row malted barley, a mix of cereal grains, and American and European hops mixed with PBR’s own proprietary yeast.

Bottom Line:

PBR is cheap, easy to find everywhere, and always there for you. It’s not the fanciest beer, but hipster craft drinkers and old folks playing horseshoes agree that it hits the spot on a hot day. That pure drinkability pushed it all the way to #3 in this tasting.

2. Narragansett — Taste 4

ABV: 5%

Average Price: $9 (six-pack, 16-oz. cans)

The Beer:

This beer is more than the beer that Captain Quint drinks in Jaws (although that’s pretty cool). The New England classic has been brewed since 1890 and has racked up awards ever since. The brew is made with 6-row malts, seedless hops, corn, Narragansett’s own lager yeast strain, and water from Lake Ontario and Lake Hemlock.

Bottom Line:

Whether you grab a Jaws throwback can or one of its iconic tallboys, this is a refreshing, light sipper well-suited for pairing with a day at a coastal beach or in your backyard with your feet in a kiddie pool. The balance and a nice note of hops, plus the fact that the corn wasn’t as overwhelming as it was in some of the others scored this a top spot.

1. Miller High Life — Taste 7

ABV: 4.6%

Average Price: $6 (six-pack)

The Beer:

Miller High Life is referred to as “The Champagne of Beers,” but that’s a bit of misdirection because this is the epitome of a no-frills, simple, refresher. It gets its refreshing flavor from the use of malted barley, proprietary yeast, Galena hop extract, and corn syrup.

Bottom Line:

While the “King of Beers” didn’t live up to the hype, the “Champagne of Beers” absolutely did. While it’s filled with sweet corn flavor, there were enough other fruity, thirst-quenching notes to make it the most well-rounded beer on this list.

I went into this with no real expectations — I’ve been focused on craft beer for so long that all of these were sort of off my radar. What I found is my new absolute go-to cookout beer.

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As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.

Tyler The Creator has been teasing new music all week, first with a billboard in LA bearing the phone number to a cryptic message from his mom, then with a video snippet called “Side Street” that appeared to be teasing a new aesthetic for his latest rollout. Yesterday, he updated the preview phone number with more new music, but he saved the biggest surprise yet for today, releasing the “Lumberjack” video to YouTube and DSPs.

The video opens with Tyler reading car magazines in bed while eating a pastry, with a mellow track backing Tyler’s narration from what sounds like a diary entry. Then, out of nowhere, the scene, music, and overall vibe take a hard 180, as we see Tyler standing atop a tower of designer trunks rapping like a madman over a gritty, ’90s-style beat, complete with ad-libs being screamed in the background by none other than DJ Kay Slay. And just in case you’re wondering, he does explain the meaning behind the title, with a bar that should have rap connoisseurs reaching for the rewind button with a sour lemon expression on their face.

The video concludes once again with the sitcom-y outro teasing “Call Me If You Get Lost,” which suggests that this is just the first salvo from a barrage of new music Tyler has ready to go.

Watch Tyler The Creator’s “Lumberjack” video above.

Donald Trump can’t score a book deal, but two of his cronies have.

In recent days, Jared Kushner, who served as the senior advisor to his father-in-law, and Kayleigh McEnany, the president’s longest-lasting press secretary, have both announced that they’re writing books. Kushner struck a deal with Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, and his memoir will be “the definitive, thorough recounting of the administration, and the truth about what happened behind closed doors.” Meanwhile, McEnany has “delivered” the manuscript for For Such a Time as This: My Faith Journey through the White House and Beyond, which “describes her path to the White House podium, bringing the reader behind the scenes in the world’s most powerful building and illuminating how faith got her through.” Here’s more:

From White House intern to White House press secretary, from production assistant to national television host, from Catholic all-girls high school to Harvard Law School, God has guided my path through uncharted territory. In For Such a Time as This, I will chronicle my journey to the White House and offer never-before-told anecdotes about what really happened within the Trump administration. You will experience some of the most high stakes moments in the West Wing right alongside me as I reveal how faith got me through.

The shared theme: the truth. Kushner’s memoir is about “what happened” during his four years as Trump’s yes man, while McEnany’s book adds a qualifier to tell “what really happened.” But as Lionel Hutz once reminded us, there are two different truths. Considering McEnany can’t even tell the truth about not lying, no one believes them.

About a month ahead of Loki‘s premiere, Disney+ made the surprise move of bumping up the show’s release date and announcing via Tom Hiddleston that the series would drop new episodes on Wednesday instead of Friday, which had been the streaming service’s previous release strategy for The Mandalorian, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. When the news first hit, the Hiddelston announcement made it seem like the Loki release change was a play on the show’s timeline-bending plot, and maybe something reserved just for that show. Not so much.

According to Variety, Disney+ has officially announced that Wednesdays are now the new Fridays for all of its original series:

According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, the decision will apply to all scripted, unscripted, and animated series going forward. Disney Plus original movies will continue to be released on Fridays.

The move will officially take effect for all other Disney Plus shows aside from “Loki” beginning in July. As such, the premiere dates of multiple shows — including “Monsters at Work” and “Turner and Hooch” — have now shifted…

After just two weeks of releasing Loki episodes on Wednesday, Disney+ apparently likes what it’s seeing, which jibes with reports that the Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson time-cop buddy show is the biggest Marvel series on the streaming service yet. However, there are no indications that Disney+ plans to alter its practice of streaming new episodes at 3 A.M. EST, which has been a constant source of frustration for audiences and critics who either have to lose sleep to catch the latest episode or completely avoid social media until they have time to watch. Case in point: The big reveal from Loki Episode 2 was already trending on Twitter first thing Wednesday morning.

(Via Variety)

Earthgang is well-known by now for the spacey, surreal visuals that accompanied their debut album Mirrorland, but with their latest rollout, they’ve gone for a more down-to-earth approach. While the initial video for “Options” with Wale featured Claymation analogs for the Atlanta duo and their guest, the grounded storyline revolved more around the mechanics of relationships and dating. The video for the remix, which added breakout artist Coi Leray to the mix, strips down the concept further, landing all four rappers at a debauched house party.

Earthgang, who recently used their notoriety to help fund a community garden at a local Atlanta school, have been somewhat cagey about a follow-up to Mirrorland, joking that it would drop on the same day as J. Cole’s album before admitting that they didn’t even know when their Dreamville boss would be putting his album out (that album, The Off-Season, has since released to an impressive commercial response).

Meanwhile, the ATLiens have kept themselves in the pop culture conversation with releases like “Aretha” and their take on Drake’s “Lemon Pepper Freestyle,” as well as returning to performing at New Zealand festival Bay Dreams and the upcoming Dreamville On The Rocks in Colorado, among others.

Watch Earthgang’s “Options Remix” video featuring Coi Leray and Wale above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Amazon’s “Prime Day Show” — a trio of cinematic performances from Billie Eilish, Kid Cudi, and HER — is set to premiere tomorrow, June 17. Ahead of then, they have shared a behind-the-scenes look at Eilish’s performance, in which she describes why she chose Paris for the setting.

“I just think Paris is so cute,” Eilish said. “It’s such a classic dream spot. I’ve been to Paris many times and I just think it’s so dreamy. And I wanted this to be dreamy, and Paris really just brought that to life, you know?”

She added, “In the middle of shooting, I was like, ‘Wow, I feel like I’m literally here in this world.’ It’s crazy, and I want [viewers] to feel like that, and I think that that will happen. It think that that’s kind of a guarantee, of just feeling transported and feeling like you’re there with me. It think that it’s going to be really cute.”

Amazon previously described the performance, “Billie brings a timeless, Parisian neighborhood to life with a series of cinematic performances. Set in the city known as the birthplace of cinema, it was directed by Billie Eilish and Sam Wrench, and features new music from Billie’s upcoming album, Happier Than Ever. This breathtaking musical tribute was inspired by Billie’s long-time admiration of a long gone era.”

Check out the behind-the-scenes video above.

So, Jon Stewart’s visit this week to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was really, uh, something. Stewart, who is preparing to host his own Apple TV+ current event series, gave the Sean Hannity crowd a reason (besides the toxic-burn-pit issue that’s impacting veterans’ health) to agree with him. That is to say, Stewart appeared to go all-in on the controversial “lab leak” theory (while noting that COVID may have originated in a Wuhan lab and somehow escaped) as Colbert maintained a skeptical stance.

“I believe we owe a great debt of gratitude to science,” Stewart told Colbert. “Science has in many ways helped ease the suffering of this pandemic… which was more than likely caused by science.” As one might expect, this segment caused a ruckus, given that the lab-leak theory has been seen as a fringe conspiracy theory, although outlets including Washington Post have pointed towards some element of credibility that’s possible, while New York Times points toward a lack of causative evidence. Stewart, though, kept pushing. “The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab,” he declared. “The disease is the same name as the lab. That’s just a little too weird!”

Whether or not Stewart — who is one of the most gifted satirists to have ever graced TV screens — was serious or joking remains a subject for debate. He sounded like he was being serious, at least at the beginning of his “science” discussion, although there’s plenty of debate out there on the topic. At this point, Stewart has not clarified his stance on the lab-leak theory, nor has he tweeted anything since May 31, when he wrote, “Dasani is the Arby’s of water.” That leaves people to assume that Stewart meant what he said, although it sure seemed spoofy when Stewart stood up and addressed the camera like some dude who’s been hanging out in his basement for decades:

“I have been alone so long. And when I realized that the laboratory was having the same name — first name and last name — of the evil that had been plaguing us, I thought to myself… that’s f*cked up.”

While everyone waits for Stewart to say something else, the right-wing is celebrating. That includes, of course, Ted Cruz, who issued a “Hallelujah” and a “Truth. Preach, brother, preach” to a Twitter user who commented that Stewart’s rant would have been blocked by Facebook a month ago, and now it’s on late-night network TV.

Cruz isn’t the only one celebrating. Ben Shapiro called Stewart’s appearance “magical,” and the debate on whether this was real continued.

Maybe we’ll hear more from Jon Stewart, or maybe he decided to drop a match and run away until The Problem With Jon Stewart debuts this fall on Apple TV+.

Megan Thee Stallion returned from a brief hiatus last week to issue a clap back to conservative politicians who are offended by her music. Releasing her “Thot Sh*t” video, Megan made fun of right-wingers who trash talk her music, but continue to obsessively follow her every career move. One conservative apparently took this critique to heart, as she took the visual as a personal affront.

GOP congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine was very outspoken about her disdain for Megan and Cardi B’s “WAP” video last year. Now, she’s taking aim at Megan’s latest song. In a video statement shared with TMZ, Lorraine mentioned that she felt personally targeted by Megan’s video:

“Megan Thee Stallion’s latest video, she’s referring to potentially me because we’ve feuded in the past with her videos like ‘WAP,’ but probably just the conservative political commentators on a whole that have called her out for her music videos and her outrageous, degrading songs in the past. So if I were to run again for office, I would say, ‘Look, we actually need to have better music, better examples of role models in our media and in our movies, and especially in our music because young people listen to music so much.’”

Lorraine continues to note that some particularly diehard Megan and Cardi B fans have sent her threatening messages. But in her mind, she really thinks she’s doing something to “help these people.” “I feel threatened. I worry sometimes if they’re going to come after me or they really will find my address and kill me or doing something terrible to me,” she said. “That’s a shame because I’m trying to help these people, I’m trying to help them see that they can be more than their ‘WAP.’”

Lorraine concluded her rant by doubling down on her assertion that Megan’s music is “garbage.” “I’m trying to help them realize that there’s a positive way to be successful in society that doesn’t mean selling your body on the streets and getting that money,” she said. “But they don’t really care, they’re going to listen to the Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion no matter what, and it’s not going to stop me from standing up for what I believe in, which is that this music is garbage and we need to do better for our youth, we need to do better for our culture.”

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.