Maiya The Don – 2024 XXL Freshman
- GOV’T NAME: Maiya Earley
- AGE: 22
- REPPIN’: Brooklyn
- X: @maiyathedon
- INSTAGRAM: @maiyathedonn
- TIKTOK: @maiyathedon
- NOTABLE RELEASES: Songs: “Telfy,” “Dusties,” “Luv You Better” with Shawny Binladen, “Expensive” featuring Flo Milli; Projects: Hot Commodity; Guest Appearances: Flo Milli’s “Conceited” featuring Lola Brooke; Flo Milli’s “Anything Flows” featuring 2Rare and Kari Faux; Lay Bankz’s “No More Crying”
- LABEL: The Pinnacle Ent.
- CURRENTLY WORKING ON: Untitled mixtape dropping this summer.
- WHO ELSE SHOULD BE PART OF THIS YEAR’S CLASS: “I feel like everybody who’s on that deserves it, worked hard, did what they had to do, and they put they steps in. Anybody who’s not on the list, it’s not like, career-determining. You still gonna do what you gotta do, and there’s gonna be more covers and more opportunities.”
- INFLUENCED BY: “I like to say I’m influenced by everybody. I think anybody out of New York, especially the women. I can’t be a young Black woman from New York and not name Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, like, everybody who came before me, obviously. And I like to say that I’m super-influenced stylistically by Rick Ross [and] Jay-Z in terms of how I like to rap.”
- AS A FRESHMAN IN HIGH SCHOOL: “I was a bookworm. Super, super into school. I love school. I love learning.”
TRUTH ON BEING AN XXL FRESHMAN: “[Being a 2024 XXL Freshman is] a big deal because I just started rapping, like, two f**king days ago. Like, I’m the definition of a Freshman, you know what I’m sayin’? Not for nothing, people will be established and have major label backings, major budgets, and people who are fighting for them to get in this spot where, like, I just work, you know, the proof is in the pudding. I have all this stuff, like, by myself.
Me, I’m somebody who cannot be duplicated or replicated or imitated. I feel like I’m very fresh by nature. I rap very traditionally. I feel like I’m the exact opposite of what people want female rappers to be, where they just believe that it’s a man spoon-feeding them sh*t. Not ’round this bi**h. I’ve always been very rambunctious and the type of people, the opposite way, like, black sheep kind of person.
I’m gonna do what I want regardless of how anybody feels. And I think it reflects on my music. I think I make music for the self-made spoiled brats, [the] first-born daughters. I’m gonna go and get them on my own. I’ve been taking care of everybody else. It’s time to take care of me.
It’s important [for me to be an XXL Freshman] because I’m a bad bi**h and I rap. And it’s like if you didn’t include me, that would have been dumb because who, like, name a new bi**h that be rapping like this right now? Name her. Bet you can’t. Bet you won’t. It’s important for hip-hop. It’s important for women in hip-hop. It’s important for women who actually rap who put pen to pad and it’s important for girls that look like me, that sound like me, that talk like me, that was in my classes. It’s so important to have that representation.”
Watch the 2024 XXL Freshman Class Revealed
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