flippin' through my music files I noticed I've been listening to a whole lot of mixtapes this last year. mixtapes have always been a interesting subject in my life and social scene and I have always had the concept of 'the mixtape' involved in my life somehow ever since I was 13 years old. just to be clear, the age of the mixtape being an actual physical cassette tape is far gone and depending on the nature of the music compiled the medium can range from cassettes over cd's to digital download links.
I can personally distinct three types of mixtapes, first one being an actual tape (or cd-recordable as technology advanced) on which friends or even strangers exchanged music they thought was worth checking out. at that age you had to get by with a weekly or monthly allowance which didn't exactly give you room to buy any record you wanted to check out, hell I think I spend the amount of money I used to get back in the day on just one drink nowadays. keep in mind that downloading music or even internet just didn't exist back then so you pretty much had to rely on whatever medium you could. what happened was you'd just tape all the shit you had for your friends and trust them to return the favor. cassette tapes were pretty easy to come by as they weren't too hard to steal and you could tape over them as much as you liked, so exchanging these tapes was obviously an easy and budget friendly way to acquire new music.
for the second kind I'm afraid I'm gonna have to go romantic on all your respective behinds, because this is the compilation of songs you'd give to your future/current/past love. music has always shown itself to be the perfect means to express emotion, be it positive or negative. so when you're anything like me and lack the talent or willpower to create it by yourself you just steal from those that seem to be able to perfectly transfer emotion to notes, chords and lyrics. these kinds of little creations would find its use in subtly or not so subtly expressing how you feel about someone or displaying musical memories that carry some sort of special meaning. coming to think of it, it's pretty weird how every mix I ever exchanged with a girl was basically a love-tape, while the tapes I used to exchange with male friends could easily be described as hate-tapes as I'm pretty sure the content was nothing short of dark, aggressive and negative. yet looking back, most of those dudes are still somehow involved in my current life, while the girls ... well, aren't.
now the third kind, and basically the kind I was referring to earlier, is the type of tape as it was conceptualized in the early new york hip hop scene and that has gone through major changes throughout the past 3 decades as the pysical tapes that used to be recorded and traded by fans and artists have been replaced by bits and bytes that can be downloaded in a matter of seconds. back when this subculture was still in its cradle and basically revolved around live performances, people used to record these to have something to bounce to at home. artists soon caught on to this and started recording their flows themselves making it easier to get their name out to the public by selling and trading their tapes. later on, when record labels came into play, these mixtapes also functioned as demo's. even now, years later, mixtapes aren't dead. artists still use these unofficial tapes to get their name out or, when already established, to give the fans something in between releases and thus creating a buzz as most of these releases contain blueprints of songs that are to appear on their future work. these tapes usually tend to put more focus on lyricism and hooks as they are often rapped over existing songs or unpolished versions of beats, in doing so these releases show a more raw version of the artist that doesn't drown in (over)production, and just like ODB, I actually kinda like it raw. in fact lil wayne's monster clubhit 'a milli' is, as the man claims himself the perfect example of a track off a mixtape. as the story goes there was still some room to fill upon writing the carter III so wayne requested a repetitive and basic beat he could just fill up with rhyme, pretty ironic as the songs blew up out of proportion.
in true holiday spirit I have selected these mixtapes that have truly grasped and amazed me this past year for your pleasure. even if you're not into the genre I advise you to open your mind and check these out as they have formed the blueprint for what is to come in hip hop future and definitely contain genre-trancending elements.
KID CUDI - a kid named cudi
DOWNLOADcudder's first mixtape. 100 % backed by kanye west and showing similarities to yeezy's signature style, often acclaimed (by haters) as emo hip hop. day 'n nite remains to be one of the best songs on this, eventhough it has been milked for all it's worth by the mainstream, next to 'is there any love?', 'down & out', '50 ways to make a record' and 'man on the moon' which would become the prelude to cudi's debut masterpiece man on the moon: the end of day.
LIL WAYNE - the weezy effect II
DOWNLOADI gave lil wayne's debut rock record titled 'rebirth' a couple of spins last week and couldn't help but being rather dissappointed in doing so. this tape was to be a sneak preview of how this new orleans goblin could handle guitars and a rhythm section next to 808s and let me say that the songs featured on this here tape took some time to grow on me but once they did I was unable to get them out of my head. songs like 'prom queen', 'hot revolver', 'rap cemetary', 'every girl', 'I'm at war' and 'rock star' are all pop/rock gems that'll have you putting this release on repeat and doing some sort of weird tribal mosh in your hallway. I think if young money entertainment would've slimmed these 20 plus songs down to 10 for rebirth they'd have had pure gold.
WALE - back to the feature
DOWNLOADtypical example of the kind of artist that has been getting his name out through guest appearances and mixtapes before bustin' out a proper release. wale has been in the game for so long, but only just released his debut record titled 'attention deficit' november 09. this has some creative reproduction of hooks and plenty of references to his peers and popular culture. one line I've always thought was funny as shit is "I can make the clouds jealous, n*gg* I am that fly.
LIL WAYNE - no ceilings
DOWNLOADwhereas the weezy effect could've been considered a preview for rebirth, I'd suspect no ceilings to be an introduction to the highly anticipated carter IV record. although I think it is impossible to top carter III which is 80 minutes of lyrical and musical genius, it is clear that weezy will definitely try this or die doing so. no ceilings offers more linguistic play, creative metaphors and genius wordplay as we've grown accustomed from this new orleans hard body. seriously I'm no stranger to the english language nor an idiot, but the way he puts things into words often has me dazzled. if a well educated music fiend such as myself has trouble deciphering some sentences, imagine the genius hidden behind the creation of those words.
enjoy.
