YTB Fatt - 2025 XXL Freshman Freestyle, Interview and More

GOV'T NAME: Cavon De’shawn Paige
AGE: 24
REPPIN': West Memphis, Ark.
X: @YTBFatt
INSTAGRAM: @ytbfatt
TIKTOK: @ytbfatt
NOTABLE RELEASES: Songs: “Shot Off Gumbo” featuring Moneybagg Yo and Fat Wizza, “Get Back,” “Calm It Down,” “Same,” “Conspiracy V2” featuring Lil Durk; Mixtapes: Who Is Fatt, Foxes Only, On Zai, Da Foxprint;; EP: The Richest Foxx; Guest Appearances: Rob49’s “Shake Sum,” Trippie Redd’s “Snail Shells,” Real Boston Richey’s “The Type,” Moneybagg Yo’s “On Det,” Tee Grizzley’s “You Hear Me”
LABEL: Loaf Boyz Ventures/10K Projects
WHO ELSE SHOULD BE PART OF THIS YEAR'S CLASS: “I need to go Lil Chuckyy. That’s just like with me, though. In the year of when you really drop your hits, it’s going to be the year after. You ain’t going to never come in your prime. I say him now, though, but I know he probably make it for sure next year.”
INFLUENCED BY: “Young Thug, Future. Sh*t, he can do every lane. Every genre, he can do it. I can do every genre, too. And they chemistry. His chemistry is crazy. He doing whatever beat come on across the screen, he finna rap on.
I feel like a baby Pluto. Me and his chemistry in the studio is crazy. I couldn’t believe it, though. I kept up, that sh*t was crazy. It was motivation, though. A lot of motivation.”
AS A FRESHMAN IN HIGH SCHOOL: “[I was] different. Just on my own sh*t, on my own time. I don’t want to be on nobody’s time. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m copying nobody. I just want to be different. Just a real hustler. It’s about the ambition.
Everybody had to come to me to get the juice. When they ran out of the juice, I made new juice, and they come to get some new juice. So, I never died out, I stayed popping.”
TRUTH ON BEING AN XXL FRESHMAN: “I’m really feeling blessed. I feel like I should have did last year, but I just... Everything on God’s time. I can’t control nothing; I just leave it in God’s hands.
But every year [Freshman] came out, I always watched it on YouTube and just say, OK, I know I got to do this to get there. I just worked my a*s off. I know working you’re a*s off comes with a lot of good results. So, I always believe in working my a*s off. I didn’t know what was going to come with [it], but I see it came with this, so I’m ready. I like the a cappella style. I like the beats, too.
But a cappella, you really could just think of something to say instead of just waiting on this beat, waiting on the next bar. You just really switch it up in a a cappella. You can do all of that. That’s what I like doing, switching it up. I’m talking about mid-verse, like, mid-bar, just switch up the whole rap. That’s what I like doing.
[When I found out I was a Freshman], I was in the car on the way to the studio to make some more music. I had [it] on my list, on my ‘Get Done’ list. I feel like that job was done. It felt good.
My city ain’t never did nothing like whatever I do. When it get done, it’s the biggest. So, now, you’re like, OK, it’s some more hope, it’s some more faith. It don’t just stop at where we at right now. It really gets bigger. When they see it, that’s what they gonna say. It’s gon’ mean a lot.
[I knew I wanted to be a Freshman] when I really had taken rap serious. Like I really started seeing it when I came in the game ’cause like, we ain’t know we was gonna be the ones they called. But as we got knee deep a little bit in the game, [we] noticed that’s what we were really aiming for.
How I talk [makes me different from other rappers]. How I take it upon myself to do different stuff. I can switch it up a little bit [and] freestyle. I might do the same thing, but it’s gonna be a little bit different. It’s gonna be a bigger.
The real motivation of the rap game [is] when I see my little cousins and spend a couple days with them, that what makes me go hard. When I go around bigger artists, that let me know that I got a long way to go. [That] give me a lot of motivation.
[My goals after the cover are] No. 1 Billboard, first step. Second step, performing live [at the] BET [Awards]. All eyes on me is my third. When they see my face on this now, they gonna be like, OK, we gotta approach him different. Yesterday’s price ain’t today’s.
This how you really start, this what really help your career pop off. The whole world gonna see this ’cause everybody around the globe gonna type in XXL. So, when they type it in, they gonna see this cover.”—Bianca Torres