- GOV’T NAME: Sierra Lucas
- AGE: 23
- REPPIN’: The Bronx
- X: @scar_lip
- INSTAGRAM: @scar_lip
- TIKTOK: @scar_lip
- NOTABLE RELEASES: Songs: “This Is New York,” “No Statements,” “Blick,” “Blick (Remix)” that includes NLE Choppa; Visitor Appearances: Swizz Beatz’s “Take ’Em Out” that includes Benny The Butcher and Jadakiss
- LABEL: Epic Information
- CURRENTLY WORKING ON: Debut EP Scars & Stripes coming later this yr.
- WHO ELSE SHOULD BE PART OF THIS YEAR’S CLASS: “We’d like Huge Yellow. We’d like Connie Diiamond. We’d like freaking 41. We’d like them as a result of these are younger artists that’s been grinding and put in work in for years, they usually making noise.”
- INFLUENCED BY: “DMX actually taught me at a younger age that even a person may cry. He was a troublesome, robust man, proper? However he cried on the finish of his exhibits. He put his life into his poems. He confirmed me actual life, not simply the cash, the jewellery, the success. And he confirmed me how he struggled with real-life issues and dependancy and despair, however he nonetheless rises. And that’s what I take from DMX. Particularly in my life.
E-V-E. That’s my lady. Lauryn Hill. As a Black girl rising up, once I was somewhat lady, and I might see Lauryn Hill on my TV display with the nappy hair and the darkish pores and skin, moisturized with the cocoa butter. I’ll have a look at the digital camera and be like, She seems to be like me. After I look within the mirror, I see darkish pores and skin. I see nappy hair, and it’s stunning.”
- AS A FRESHMAN IN HIGH SCHOOL: “I skipped class on a regular basis. I truly didn’t even end highschool. I went to Job Corps to complete highschool. I didn’t get my GED. I received my highschool diploma. I used to be a fighter and a nasty child. As a result of once you’re younger within the hood, you be combating individuals and sh*t. I used to be beating bi**hes up as a result of I’m from the hood. That is the sh*t I do.
I beat bi**hes up, and that’s what I did in highschool. It was deep-rooted in trauma, previous trauma that I by no means received out, and I simply took it [out] on others. However I by no means beat any individual up for no motive. It was all the time a motive I beat bi**hes up.”
TRUTH ON BEING AN XXL FRESHMAN: “[It’s] a giant deal for me as a result of I all the time watched XXL. Particularly in my teen years, all the time watching artists and stuff, like celebrities that I look as much as, celebrities I really like on this platform. As a Freshman, that’s the most important factor you may be. And it’s necessary to be right here. That is an accomplishment. It’s like, I’m that bi**h now. I’m stamped.
I carry my genuine self [to this class]. I’m bringing a realness. I’m bringing the ache and the ugly fact to the XXL. Uncooked feminine power, real-life power. New York power. I really feel like I’m bringing hip-hop again on the map. I’m bringing that uncooked feeling again. That uncooked feeling, we ain’t felt that in a very long time. And all people’s doing their factor, you’re feeling me? Everyone brings various things to the desk. However that is simply what I carry. And I’m happy with it, and I’m standing assured.
I really feel like a whole lot of my life has been simply to show to individuals, like, that I’m necessary. Ya’ll gonna see me as a result of I by no means actually felt seen. As we speak’s my mother’s birthday. She died. And the day of the XXL, I used to be going to go to my mother’s grave. It was like, that is actually massive. I actually labored my approach to get right here.
[When the cover releases] I’m going to pop some bottles. In all probability exit to eat with my group and my fam. [My fans] really feel like they’re my household. Once they see me on the XXL [cover], they’re going to be a proud sister or a proud mother, or a proud dad.”—As advised to Bianca Torres
Watch ScarLip’s 2024 XXL Freshman Freestyle
ScarLip 2024 xxl freshman freestyle
There are only a few up-and-coming rappers within the present state of hip-hop who exude the kind of uncooked emotion that ScarLip brings within the sales space. The 23-year-old New York Metropolis native personifies the tough realities of a younger Black girl being raised within the gritty streets of the Bronx. ScarLip has confronted unimaginable trauma all through her life, and she or he makes use of these wounds as motivation to flip the script within the type of a blossoming rap profession. She poignantly pours her coronary heart out in her 2024 XXL Freshman freestyle.
With highly effective ardour delivered through her dynamic vocal capacity, ScarLip’s freestyle is a tattered but inspirational self-portrait painted throughout an a cappella canvas. The sheer ache in her voice matched with harrowing tales of an unfair life are masterfully crafted to evoke compassion from even probably the most hardened souls. Alongside an underlying portrayal of self-driven hope, Scar joins the 2024 XXL Freshman Class with a vehemently visceral autobiography in rhyme type.
“As a Black lady within the system, I used to be taught to hate myself,” ScarLip painfully remembers earlier than rapping concerning the horrors of foster care that she confronted following her mom’s premature dying when she was simply 12 years outdated. “Raised in a Black residence, in the event you speak again, they seize the belt/I used to be jumped from home to deal with, you do not know how that made me felt/Two years later, I grabbed the knife, I used to be able to kill myself.”
Very like a phoenix rising from the ashes, ScarLip lays all of it on the road with hearth and ferocity—the identical attributes which have carried her alongside her disadvantageous path to success. “You do not know sh*t about my life, cease saying that you simply care/The place was you at when he was touchin’ me? None of y’all was there/The place was you at when my mom died? None of y’all was there/I used to have this spark in me, you see, they took that glow in me/Need me to let you know ’bout my life with out you even understanding me?” she spits.
As ScarLip’s lyrical ode to her unfavorable upbringing continues all through the verse, she shines a lightweight on the unhappy societal norms individuals in related conditions face all too typically. “Ain’t no blissful ending, ain’t no happiness for me/Advised my uncle I wish to rap, he advised me that was only a dream/And goals advised come true for Black women that seem like me/So, therapist, please inform me, what do you see once you have a look at me?” Scar continues.
The Huge Apple MC could be very a lot conscious that her darkish depictions of deep-rooted despair, whereas relatable to so many, set her other than different rhymers in a hip-hop panorama filled with lavish life and wealthy flexes. When requested what she brings to the rap recreation as a part of this yr’s XXL Freshman Class, Scar says, “I am bringing a realness. I am bringing the ache, and I am bringing the ugly fact to XXL.”
She additionally understands the kind of impression her story can have on a sector of rap followers who can typically be neglected. “Should you’re not assured in who you’re and the way you look, and there is not any voice for those that’s simply younger women that seem like me, they will be insecure considering they should seem like this and seem like that,” ScarLip tells XXL on the Freshman cowl shoot this previous Might. “That is why it is all the time good when artists and musicians characterize themselves confidently and as themselves as a result of it simply exhibits us we will be ourselves.”
Nonetheless, by means of all that, it is not essentially all battle and strife for ScarLip at this second in her blossoming profession. In truth, by means of her dirty bars and boisterous voice, ScarLip has been capable of rapidly align herself with a few of hip-hop’s most elite gamers of all time together with essential cosigns from Busta Rhymes, 50 Cent, Jadakiss and her high-profile mentor, Swizz Beatz.
After breaking by means of to the rap recreation’s mainstream in 2023, with “This Is New York,” ScarLip was invited to carry out the menacing Huge Apple anthem in her residence borough alongside Snoop Dogg eventually yr’s Hip-Hop 50 Dwell live performance at Yankee Stadium. The look made manner for ScarLip to slip on standout collabs with the likes of Benny The Butcher and Jadakiss, each of whom she matches lyrically on the music “Take ’Em Out.” Her most profitable music to this point, “No Statements,” has raked in almost 4.5 million Spotify streams and earned ScarLip her first look on Billboard’s Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart.
Watch ScarLip cathartically conquer tragedy in her 2024 XXL Freshman freestyle under.—Joey Echevarria
Watch ScarLip’s 2024 XXL Freshman Freestyle
Watch ScarLip’s 2024 XXL Freshman ABCs
Watch the 2024 XXL Freshman Class Revealed
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See the 2024 XXL Freshman Class Artists and Producer
