iPod Raheem 2.0
D, mother****er, D.
I love it. 
We're living in a crazy era, brehs.
There used to be a clear difference between a mixtape and an album. When 50/G-Unit were releasing mixtapes in the early 2000s, the mixtape was different. The mixtape was primarily about about generating hype for an artist or creating a buzz for an album they had coming up.
I think that part is still true, but the difference now is that there is a substantial difference in the quality of the mixtape projects. They use to just remix other people's songs and spit shyt over recycled beats and throw them together with DJ drops (Clue! Clue!) interspersed throughout. A lot of that shyt was dope, but a lot of it was of a lesser quality than album cuts. Now, they create original, mastered, polished, album-quality shyt.
Drake's So Far Gone
Big KRIT's Return of 4eva
Dom Kennedy's The Yellow Album
Rick Ross's Rich Forever
The Weeknd's House of Baloons
Just a few examples, but these shyts are dope as fukk. The sound quality is great. The projects have themes. There's a cohesion to the projects. Overall, well done.
To top it off, we
for free, and it's lobsters and crabmeats quality, not that bologna with the red casing. And the quality is sometimes better than actual commercial albums that they end up releasing (eg: SFG>>>TML)--in part, because they don't have to worry about selling records, clearing samples, dealing with label heads, and meeting time deadlines.
The artists generally don't get paid for this shyt, either. I realize they do this with the hopes of eventually getting paid (via people buying their actual commercial albums, going to their shows, buying merchandise, etc.). Nevertheless, it seems like it's more about creating good music. And that's really what it should always be about, anyway.
In short, the modern mixtape has changed the game.
To conclude this first post, I think we should start including some "mixtapes" when we discuss artists' legacies. I think we usually have drawn a line between mixtapes and albums when discussing an artist's discography or their place in hip-hop history. We shouldn't really do that that anymore. Mixtapes haven't always held the same weight. They should now since a lot of mixtapes are essentially albums. The only difference now is that some projects are free and some aren't (technically
). So when I look at KRIT, I look at him being on his 4th project, not just his 1st one.
What y'all think? How y'all feel about this lobster and crabmeat we eating for free?
We're living in a crazy era, brehs.
There used to be a clear difference between a mixtape and an album. When 50/G-Unit were releasing mixtapes in the early 2000s, the mixtape was different. The mixtape was primarily about about generating hype for an artist or creating a buzz for an album they had coming up.
I think that part is still true, but the difference now is that there is a substantial difference in the quality of the mixtape projects. They use to just remix other people's songs and spit shyt over recycled beats and throw them together with DJ drops (Clue! Clue!) interspersed throughout. A lot of that shyt was dope, but a lot of it was of a lesser quality than album cuts. Now, they create original, mastered, polished, album-quality shyt.
Drake's So Far Gone
Big KRIT's Return of 4eva
Dom Kennedy's The Yellow Album
Rick Ross's Rich Forever
The Weeknd's House of Baloons
Just a few examples, but these shyts are dope as fukk. The sound quality is great. The projects have themes. There's a cohesion to the projects. Overall, well done.
To top it off, we
for free, and it's lobsters and crabmeats quality, not that bologna with the red casing. And the quality is sometimes better than actual commercial albums that they end up releasing (eg: SFG>>>TML)--in part, because they don't have to worry about selling records, clearing samples, dealing with label heads, and meeting time deadlines.The artists generally don't get paid for this shyt, either. I realize they do this with the hopes of eventually getting paid (via people buying their actual commercial albums, going to their shows, buying merchandise, etc.). Nevertheless, it seems like it's more about creating good music. And that's really what it should always be about, anyway.
In short, the modern mixtape has changed the game.
- more quality music is available for free
- artists get more exposure and build a legitimate fanbase before selling one record
- getting so much free shyt makes people (at least me) want to support the artist when they come out with a commercial album
- fans talk more about the actual music rather than how many records an artist has sold or will sell
To conclude this first post, I think we should start including some "mixtapes" when we discuss artists' legacies. I think we usually have drawn a line between mixtapes and albums when discussing an artist's discography or their place in hip-hop history. We shouldn't really do that that anymore. Mixtapes haven't always held the same weight. They should now since a lot of mixtapes are essentially albums. The only difference now is that some projects are free and some aren't (technically
). So when I look at KRIT, I look at him being on his 4th project, not just his 1st one.What y'all think? How y'all feel about this lobster and crabmeat we eating for free?
