Remember the days of DatPiff, My Mixtapes and Spinrilla? Maybe if you’re old enough, you remember when people sold their tapes out of trunks, barber shops, and malls. There weren’t any fears of copyright laws so you would hear rappers on some of the most popular beats of the moment. Lyrical exercise was taken to the next level and helped build the lore around the best rappers alive. Rappers like Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane, 50 Cent, Max B, and Jadakiss thrived on the infrastructure of a mixtape. By the time this system reached the internet, all of these tapes would end up being released for free.
Nowadays, this system is practically dead. Every record goes straight to streaming so it doesn’t really matter if it’s called an album, EP, or mixtape. New music is new music and the thrill has been gone entirely. However, dig deep enough and there are artists restoring the feeling of the mixtape era, either stylistically or in their feverish output. Consequently, Noisey has selected four artists for anyone wishing they could go back and download old Curren$y and Wiz Khalifa tapes and drag them to their iTunes library.
4 Rappers You Should Play if You Loved the Mixtape Era
G Herbo
G Herbo was born and bred on radio freestyles and DJ Clue-hosted mixtapes. While a lot of his music is generally based around punchline-heavy barrages, the Best Rapper Alive project reawakened the mixtape feeling. He’ll curb from The Game and Lil Wayne classics with the gritty realism of old SMACK DVD cyphers and freestyles. When the Chicago veteran raps at this level, he lives up to the moniker on the tape.
Lil Tony Official
Imagine if you heard Scarface release a new project seemingly every month on New Age Production. What if Gucci Mane rapped about street life and his love for Jesus in the same record? In that sense, you have Atlanta’s own Lil Tony Official, a deadpan rapper who juxtaposes his trauma with an earnest sense of faith in the Almighty. Blink and you’ll miss another loose record on YouTube. Blink again and there’s another 10 songs for a project on streaming services. It’s this kind of work ethic that bred the greatest mixtape artists of years past.
Lelo
Another strong rapper with a prolific release rate, Lelo preaches a “New Detroit“, where he channels the Motor City as an inner-city dystopia akin to Akira. The world grows increasingly darker and Lelo floods the market with anthems about getting to the money in such a hellscape. He’ll cram a tsunami of bars within a tight minute and thirty, an aversion to the mixtape standard of three verses of sprawling lyrical exercise. Instead, he’ll release a song every couple of weeks with a new slate of deflated shrugs about life. In another era, he’d release a tape every few months to devour DatPiff.
Papo2oo4
Papo2oo4 raps like George W. Bush is still in office and NBA Live is still hitting the shelves. His work is so earnestly reflective of the early-to-mid 2000s, when Dipset ruled New York post 9/11 and everyone was trying to emulate And 1 mixtape highlights. But it never comes off as trite or cliché; rather, it’s a wholehearted expression that hones in on the details lazier artists might ignore.
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