Every year, XXL magazine, the leading hip-hop publication, publishes its Freshman issue, in which its editors crown 10 up-and-coming rappers. It’s become something of a state of the union for emergent hip-hop movements, and the selection process helped the magazine become the first mainstream rap outlet to acknowledge the impact that the internet has on hip-hop taste.

This year’s freshman class was eclectic and wide-ranging, including a pair of Atlanta rappers working at opposite ends of the genre’s creative spectrum: the schoolboy crooner Lil Yachty and the hardened tough 21 Savage. A video interview filmed for the package underscored their differences: Lil Yachty, hair in his signature red braids, noted that the rappers in this year’s class are young: “I just got out of high school,” he said, gleefully. Cut to 21 Savage, with a tattoo of a dagger between his eyes, who good-naturedly retorts: “I ain’t go to high school. I was in juvenile.”

Later, Lil Yachty asserts that everyone selected for the group has his own sound. “I make positivity music,” he said, then added, “the opposite of 21.” 21 Savage grabbed the alley-oop and put down the dunk. “Yeah,” he said. “I make murder music.”

That both Lil Yachty and 21 Savage are thriving at the same time is a testament to their hometown’s wide influence, and its increasingly centerless sonic approach. Both released new projects recently: 21 Savage has “Savage Mode,” a mixtape made in collaboration with the producer Metro Boomin, and Lil Yachty has “Summer Songs 2,” his second mixtape this year.