Since 2008 XXL Magazine has put out an annual issue highlighting new acts that the editors predict will go on to impact hip-hop — the music and the industry. In the beginning, the 10 musicians chosen for the cover of that issue were called the Leaders of the New School. Over the years the people who land what's now called the Freshmen cover — as well as the people who didn't, not to mention the people who turned it down — have become the topic of conversation all over the place, including in song.

The debates and turf wars that the Freshmen issue manifests — What are the effects of music journalism's current turbulent epoch on the prospects of musicians themselves? What is the role of the New York City-based music business in a now worldwide culture and industry? What does it take to make it? — are felt and grappled with by the people who make the issue at every step of their process.

For their perspective, Microphone Check co-hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley sat down with Vanessa Satten, the editor in chief of XXL who's been with the magazine since 1998, and senior editor Dan Rys, who's been there 11 months, making this his first Freshmen cover.