"I just walked out”- Rich Amiri confirms he was the 2024 XXL Freshman who decided not to participate in the Cypher shoot

Rich Amiri (image via Instagram/ @richamiri)

Rich Amiri, aka Amiri Dexter Chase, recently revealed that he 'walked out' of the iconic XXL Magazine Freshmen photoshoot for the year 2024. The XXL Magazine Freshman photoshoot, which has been going on for ages, selects 11 of the most promising rappers every year. Previous iterations of this list have included eventual juggernauts of the industry like Ty Dolla $ign, Kendrick Lamar, Wiz Khalifa, Future, Travis Scott, Megan Thee Stallion, Chance the Rapper and many others.

XXL Magazine revealed that during the photo shoot this year, one of the members decided to ditch the set and run off moments before the start of the filming. In a recent update, Rich Amiri confirmed that he was the one who 'walked out'.

"ian pretend to go for no clothes i just walked out," confirmed Rich Amiri on his X handle.

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Rich Amiri was supposedly called out by XXL Magazine in a cryptic article

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In an article published by XXL Magazine, they supposedly criticized Rich Amiri for walking out of the set moments before the photoshoot after he was included in their XXL Freshmen 2024 list of most promising rappers of the year.

According to the magazine's article, Rich Amiri backed out and left in his car literally five minutes before the start of the shoot. Neither his team nor he offered any explanation or picked up the calls by the magazine's publicist.

"One Freshman got so shook over the cypher that he ditched the shoot literally five minutes before it was going to be filmed. He pretended to go to his car for clothing, hopped in and got outta there. He and his team then refused to an- swer our or their publicist's calls. It would've been nice for them to return one call," the article stated.

Although the writer guessed that many people would support the 19-year-old because of the apparent swagger in the move, they described it as a 'pathetic way to handle things.' They also explained that the unexpected debacle caused a lot of trouble for the magazine.

"Some of you will probably laugh at what he did because you think he's pop- pin' anyway, so it ain't nothin', but I think it was a pathetic way to handle things. And it definitely caused some havoc and felt like a ruthless way to conduct business," continued the writer.

The magazine also debated whether to keep Rich Amiri on their list after the disrespect or delete him completely. However, they went with the former after Rich Amiri's manager issued an apology.

"Over the next few days, we had to decide if we were going to re- move that artist from the Class altogether, which we were conflict- ed over, but we decided to keep him in. We did receive an apology from the Freshman's manager a few days later, but never heard from the artist directly."

The article concluded:

"Ultimately, we hate to see a Freshman back out of a cypher be- cause this is what they do for a living: they rap. There is no specific length the verse is supposed to be, but still, that's too hard for some of them. It feels like they should be able to get through a verse, but s the years go on, more and more artists struggle with this part of freshman," explained the article.

Meanwhile, other artists were grateful for their inclusion in the XXL Freshman list 2024 and expressed their gratitude on various social media platforms.

Lay Bankz got emotional and penned a letter of thanks to everyone who supported her throughout her journey. She further stressed how big of a deal being on the cover of XXL was for her.

On the other hand, ScarLip was short and crisp in her note of gratitude.

""Ya girl is a freshman," wrote the 23-year-old on Instagram.