Countless genres and music scenes have had a close history with tapes over time, but no genre has been as closely tied together as rap has been with mixtapes. Unlike most older genres simply adopting mixtapes as the technology of the time, and then moving on to CD’s, then streaming, then (*shudders*) playlists, the growth of rap out of the earliest days in New York was due in large part to the ability to hear tapes custom made by your favorites. That close bond has preserved mixtapes for the generations that have never actually had one in their hands.
Unfortunately, It’s begun to feel like mixtapes have become a lost art for rap in 2024. It’s incredibly rare for older and more established artists to release one, and while some younger rappers (mainly Yeat) have managed to slowly build audiences off their mixtape success, but once that success comes the mixtapes go as the pressure to go viral and stay on top at all times sets in. It’s taken a lot of the individuality out of the genre. Mixtapes used to be a common way for some of the biggest rappers out to further show off how skilled they were, or could be a moment for some teenager you’d never heard of to burst onto the scene and immediately take shit over. Partially due to a mix collapse of the blogosphere (which heavily inspired much of us writing this and the picks we made), streaming services spike in popularity, and shitty copyright laws regarding sampling, things just haven’t been the same.
Because talking about rap is one of our favorite things, this is a chance for some of us at EIN to go back and celebrate some of our favorite rappers’ tapes, some of the tapes that made us love rap so much, and in two weeks time we’ll bring you another batch of our favorites!
There’s nothing I could say that would understate how much Chief Keef changed music on Back from the Dead. The early 2010’s Chicago drill scene is one of rap’s most influential movements, and you would struggle to find more than a handful of musicians under thirty that have changed music as much as Keef has. Not just because drill would quickly influence Atlanta’s sound just as much as it had been influenced by Atlanta, or the followup New York scene led by Pop Smoke. Keef was one of the first rappers that brought a sound to an international audience and had it stick. You can hear the influence of “I Don’t Like” across continents – something very few rappers can claim to have in their music.
The confidence and abrasiveness of “I Don’t Like” immediately captivated the globe and was one of the rap tracks of the year, it’s not a surprise it was almost immediately remix’d and freestyled over to death. Keef’s captivating yet simple writing is incredible on tracks like “Save That Shit”, it’s got one of the most anthemic and repeatable hooks you will ever hear and the remix with Soulja Boy (he’s better here than on “3hunna” but he works well on both) is incredible. Keef’s ability to switch between faster flows on “Winnin” with King Louie and slower, heavier tracks like “Everyday” helped him stand out as it had slowly been becoming more common for rappers to stick with more repetitive flows – which has only gotten much worse. Keef has always been surprisingly versatile and that’s no different here.
A couple years later Keef would grow as an artist and begin to put in double duty as both producer and rapper, occasionally producing entire projects on his own; but on Back from the Dead, Young Chop delivers the best production work of his career. “True Religion Fein” is probably the best beat on the tape. The snares are fucking insane. Keef’s ad libs are perfectly worked in as well, and Yale Lucciani absolutely kills that shit when he comes in, as do all the other features on Back from the Dead. The sort of 8-bit effects on “I Don’t Know Dem” works incredibly well, partially because Keef just sounds great on everything, especially if it gets a little weird.
One of the worst parts of the decline in modern mixtapes is that it feels very unlikely there will ever be another star making drop like Back from the Dead was for Keef. A bit of TikTok buzz can get you far, but it can’t make you last the way Keef was able to turn Back from the Dead and “I Don’t Like” into being a rap staple – in spite of his first record deal with Interscope imploding almost immediately.
Watching Chief Keef grow as a rapper over the years and slowly get his flowers after his influence became undeniable has been delightful to witness, especially considering his two projects this year are both very good, but I’m not sure I’ll ever enjoy a project from him as much as I have Back from the Dead. It’s a timeless classic and one of the best examples of what a perfect mixtape can be.
-Alex Eubanks
It’s really funny to look back on music you listened to a while ago and had issues connecting with and seeing what you considered to be weird, unconventional, and avant-garde. We’re at a time and place now with music where a lot of ‘weird’ shit gets big-upped nowadays so to remember that Acid Rap was once upon a time one of those projects for me is silly.
Still, I do maintain that this was a wild release for 2013. Balls deep in the bloggy, mixtapey era we’re primarily covering between all of us on this feature, there was a lot of experimentation going on. After all, the hip-hop side of the internet was Lil B’s world – the rest of us were just living in it. It was cool to see this kid Chance the Rapper come up out of Chicago, stepping out of Kanye West’s shadow, and really doing some interesting-ass shit. So interesting, that not everyone was fucking with it on launch (ultra big love to Dead End Hip Hop as usual).
I know for me personally, Acid Rap was just offbeat enough – at least compared to what I was listening to at the time (Lil B, Waka Flocka Flame, Kendrick Lamar, Pusha T, Das Racist, El-P, Mr. Muthaphukkin’ eXquire, Action Bronson, Danny Brown, Lakutis, etc.) – that it took me about a year after it dropped to realize the genius. And just to be clear, yes, I’m talking about the ORIGINAL mixtape release on DatPiff in 2013, the one where “Pusha Man” and “Paranoia” are on the same track separated by a canyon-like emptiness. The streaming version is NOT the ideal version of this tape at all – hell, until last year, “Juice” wasn’t even on that version because of sampling issues.
I had never really heard anything like “Good Ass Intro” before with its odd rhythm, throbbing bass, clean horns, the backing vocals, and overall approach from Chance with his flow and rapping. It was off-putting to me, a tall initial barrier to clear into the rest of the album which is, mostly, more conventional.
After that though, is “Pusha Man”, one of the best rap songs I’ve ever heard. The keys and horns are so smooth and jazz and soul-influenced, it has a wonderfully catchy hook, and the ad libs grow on you as Chance envelops us in an extravagant Chicago night that’s never too far from the colder reality his young life carries (‘Still got a letterman, no practice/Still got a burner, man, no lackin’’). It’s the high before the comedown, which is “Paranoia”, a dreary, hazy crash that doesn’t let up with references to gang violence, PTSD, and an overwhelming fear and loneliness. It’s a perfect foil to the celebratory grandstanding of “Pusha Man” with even the instrumentation not being able to hold up for the whole four and a half minutes.
Acid Rap’s biggest strength is playing on Chance’s very real life growing up in Chicago; the good, the bad, and the worse. But the good is so, so good. “Cocoa Butter Kisses” is a great ode to being a bad-ass kid and how the love and affection of family centers you. The lyrical density of “Lost” with Noname is dark, but poetically so in how it deals with broken love marred with drugs. “Favorite Song” with Childish Gambino and “Nana” with Action Bronson are fun, while “Acid Rain” rounds out the somber mood before the “Good Ass Outro” which is so endearing. Not everything aged well, but it’s a great tape, a relic of one of the 2010s’ most impressive artists who has since been trying to reclaim relevancy and fans alike after a fumble of legendary proportions. I’m still rooting for the dude.
IGH!
-David Rodriguez
In 2008 Danny Brown would release Hot Soup. At this point we still had several years to go before Danny would truly break into the underground hip-hop consciousness with his defining opus XXX, a work so beloved and seminal in his catalog that earlier works often only receive a cursory glance. He had yet to fully form his signature brash irreverence and dark chaotic humor, but in the tracklist of Hot Soup one can hear immense talent bubbling up. With a sharp ear for beats and clever braggadocious rhymes, Danny would lay a foundation to be remembered.
“Dance” being the opener sets the tone of the project up with its thick bouncing drums topped with some slick minimal horns and a crispy vibraslap. The vibraslap in particular adds such a unique texture to the instrumental and makes it impossible to not nod your head along. He complements these sounds with bars like, ‘I’m up early, knocking roaches off my toothbrush. In the spot, hoodie on just like the Ku Klux.’ Danny is already giving you funny one liners like this that juxtapose squalor filth with a flippant attitude towards conventional tastes in humor. He wants you to know exactly who he is and what he comes from right from the beginning of his mixtape. These elements combine to paint a perfect picture of the mixtape as a whole. It will be sonically rich, infinitely quotable, and above all else fun.
Songs like “Ten G’s A Week” and “Swagger to the Max” show the ambitions of Danny at this time. He recounts where he has been and where he wants to go all while not losing sight of the city and its ails around him. Nick Speed produced almost all of the tape, but he lays in some of my favorite embellishments here on “Swagger to the Max”. Key licks, hogs snorting, vocal snippets, and sirens all pop in and out of the beat at certain points almost acting as small sonic adlibs. This type of experimental weirdo beatsmithing is at work all over the project but really shines here. Danny clearly already was developing an eccentric ear and keen sense of soundscape for his projects. Every beat flow perfectly into the next, all reinforcing one another into a beautiful tapestry of sound.
“Squeeze Precisely” and “Gun in Yo’ Mouf” show Danny’s cold blooded side almost better than it had ever been shown. Later on projects like XXX and Old he would perfect the art of layering these more violent bars into his humorous ones to create a more cohesive voice, but here they are raw and unfettered. Hearing lines like ‘If you ain’t getting money what you came for? Surgery with a chainsaw. If you ain’t getting money get the fuck out or get a gun in your mouth’ over the minimal empty beat really highlights the simplicity in his words. He is not being fancy. He is not being clever. He is bloodthirsty on these tracks. Danny was clearly very hungry for something on this project. Danny crafted something special with Hot Soup. He had yet reach the dancing rhythms of Old, or the esoteric grime of XXX and Atrocity Exhibition, but he was present. This is Danny’s affirmation of his place in hip-hop and his paving of the roads ahead. Any fan of him or experimental hip-hop as a whole should consider this a must listen.
-Bryson Chapman
DJ Screw – Screwtapes
Released: 1993 – 2000
Independent
Robert Earl Davis Jr. left his mark on hip hop with over 350 mixtapes, and a fandom that fiercely guards his legacy. I was on a message board poking around, when I found this comment. It’s a deft explanation, and a complete misunderstanding of what the Texas rap legend has gifted both the Houston scene, and hip hop as a whole. No one has since made a go of mixtapes like the Houston Rap King, and probably no one ever will. ‘Slow and reverbed’ ain’t Screw, what that Beastie fanboy said ain’t Screw, neither ChopNotSlopped nor Michael Watts and Swisha House are DJ Screw (respectfully). There’s only one DJ Screw, and the preservation of respect in Houston, and Texas at large is very real.
I remember the first time I heard DJ Screw. I was in 9th grade, in the early days of 1999, and caught a ride from a Junior after school. We all packed into the car, and immediately she turned the stereo all the way up so conversation was impossible, and all the windows shook as the one of the S.U.C legends’ lyrics poured out slowly, and syrupy in between deep scratches, and the ‘knowaimsayiiiiin’ in between tracks, it was confusing, I had never heard music presented like this, and it broke my brain. I immediately recognized the greatness, and have been a bonafide fan ever since. It’s an easy path growing up in Austin, since our local rap scene was and really still an extension of the Houston scene, but in the grand scheme of things, DJ Screw’s imprint, legacy, and statement is one that’s particularly unique, erroneously attempted and imitated.
With over 350 mixtapes, Screw provided a soundscape that has an alien richness many at the time, and for decades scoffed at. Many misunderstood his intentions, but having grown up in Texas it was always apparent: this is an all consuming cruising music, and in a state as large and desolate as Texas, it provides tunes for long travels to get lost in. What a lot of outsiders and people seem to miss is Screw’s brilliance in his deconstruction. He didn’t mind making a statement, nor stepping outside of the bounds to create what he wanted his music to be. The richness drips from everything. Whether it’s one of the bonafides from the S.U.C like Lil Keke, Fat Pat, ESG, UGK, Z-Ro, Trae The Truth, or Lil Flip, or Screw sharing his stream of consciousness in between tracks, everything was laid back, and provides room for one’s mind to wander, and just relax. Growing up in Texas in the golden era of Screw may mean never knowing what your favorite artist sounds like unscrewed. Lil Keke is certified Texas rap royalty, and my favorite Houston rapper, but if you had played his original cuts back then I wouldn’t have been able to acknowledge it as anything other than a Screw track sped up, respectfully.
Short tracks end up long, and long tracks end up longer, packing the 100 minutes of gray Maxwell tapes end to end with meditative, hypnotic sounds that inundate your senses with heavy saturation. The deep scratches sound like earthquakes before baritone only bars are delivered looped on top of one another, and on repeat. Listening through the rich textures can pave way to deep, introspective classic hip hop story telling, giving perspective to personal struggles, as much as the street hustle & slab culture Houston is known for. “Southside Groovin” and “Bangin Screw” are two tracks that push the limits with their runtime, but also provide rewarding psychedelic payoffs the deeper you go.
Lil Flip’s legendary aptly titled “Freestyle” stretches those runtimes as well, and wouldn’t ever sound right if it didn’t. This is music to forget yourself and get lost in. Texas, as well as the world ain’t ever been the same since.
We like to take our time down here, and for better or worse preserve tradition. Sometimes that looks ugly as fuck (Fuck the Texas GOP), but with Screw, we get it right. He’s a legend that almost singlehandedly put the modern Houston music scene on the map, and will remain protected and guarded as well as Pimp C, Selena Quintanilla, and Beyoncé.
RIP DJ SCREW
-Daniel Reiser
Throughout Tyler, The Creator’s catalog he is forever asking a single question to which the answers are legion. Will the real Tyler please stand up? As myriad Spartacan voices rise saying ‘I am Tyler’. Bastard is the first in a trilogy attempting to respond to this question of identity even if the answer isn’t definite. Who is the real Tyler? A bastard, a goblin, a wolf? Yes.
On Christmas Day 2009 aged just eighteen years Tyler, The Creator released his debut mixtape Bastard. The songs were mostly made a few years earlier and the entire project oozes of youthful exuberance. For all the good and ill that entails. There’s shock rock horrorcore elements purposefully designed to piss people off. Some of the language and content hasn’t aged particularly well, but there’s also pure energy and heart spilling out at the seams.
Tyler’s flow on Bastard is smooth, captivating in its domination. His word play, if juvenile at best and offensive at worst, is witty as hell cutting clean and deep. But ultimately it’s his talents as a producer that are the real highlight of this mixtape and his work overall. Tyler is innovative and interesting featuring a wide range of varied influences both sonically and temporally. His talent for production and composition are on full display even here at the beginning.
“Assmilk” is a showcase of extremity. Tyler and Earl Sweatshirt pass the mic back and forth like kids trading playground insults. Round after round of one-upmanship verses of ever increasing filth and ridiculousness. “Assmilk” serves as a complement and counterpoint to the material Earl and Tyler would later explore. They maintained their tight lyricism with the same rich delivery, but their content, if not completely matured, definitely evolved over time. All laid down over consistently eclectic and powerful sonic landscapes. Never afraid to experiment and push the boundaries of genre limitations.
There’s a duality at play in the dark imagery on Bastard between seriousness and fantasy. The over the top joking about self harm, drugs, murder, and rape are obviously not meant to be taken seriously. Whereas the topics of anxiety, mental health, and growing up without a father are handled with a flippant nonchalance. Dismissing the gravity of these dueling thematic elements is a sort of thought provoking introspection by way of nihilism.
Tyler, The Creator is essentially a villainous persona not unlike MF DOOM or Slim Shady. These outlets provide opportunities for deflection and plausible deniability. Whether it’s something sick and disturbing or a heartfelt revelation. They can always say ‘oh, that wasn’t me that was just a character I was playing.’
Whether all this exaggeration and posturing is costume or disguise only one man can really know. And ultimately even he may be hiding from himself. As if you needed any further proof that all this still looms large over Tyler to this day, you needn’t look any further than the mask laden imagery prominently featured in the roll out for his seventh album CHROMAKOPIA. Bastard is inconsistent at times. Some moments stretch on a little too long and other ideas are under explored. A few of the jokes fall flat, but for all its silliness it’s always sincere. There are no punches pulled here. There’s a youthful swagger and confidence on display that is firing on all cylinders. Tyler may never have definitively answered the core thesis question of identity over the years as his popularity has exploded. But the quality of his exploration has never faltered.
-Adam P. Terry
In 2007, I had very high standards for hip hop. I wanted clever bars, deep lyrics, backpack and indie raps. I could rip blunts with my friends and find some joy in Southern hip hop, but I was more interested in how literary this art could be. So, assuming he was just another op rapper, I wasn’t overly familiar or interested in Lil Wayne, but friends and critics were declaring his greatness. I finally dove in with Da Drought 3.
Man, Weezy is at his best when he is having fun and letting the flow reign over the desert dry landscape of weaker mainstream artists. “Intro” is mesmerizing as Wayne flows in a Jamaican accent, dropping rhymes and intonations like a method actor. Meanwhile, multiple beats are dropping throughout the song, bobbing in and out of the lyrics without a single element out of sync. I was hooked.
Da Drought 3 isn’t deep, but it is fun as hell. Lines like ‘I’m so high I could eat a star,’ on “Upgrade U” still make me chuckle. On the same track he drops, ‘If you hatin’ baby you can get a side of deez/deez nutz in your mouth/can you swallow please,’ and if you knew how many ‘deez nutz’ jokes I have heard in the last 17 years, you’d look back on the first time with a warm, hairy nostalgia.
I was obsessed with MF DOOM at the time. I still think of DOOM as my favorite rapper, but Lil Wayne’s jokes, puns, and cleverness on Da Drought 3 are damn close to the Villain’s skill. ‘I’m a paper chasin’ dog, check my toenails/I never miss a game no Shaq O’Neil’ is such an outlandish line and twisted rhyme that your brain rubbernecks to catch it. His Martian way of twisting words to fit his ridiculous bars is endlessly entertaining.
Revisting this mixtape also made me realize this was the first time I heard Nicki Minaj on the track “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop,” where she spits her first verse for Young Money, entering the infancy of her superstardom. I wouldn’t remember her until Kanye West’s “Monster,” but knowing Da Drought 3 was an early domino in in such a huge career is notable. It was also the first time I heard Curren$y on “President.” Brisco’s career didn’t go as well after his debut verse on “New Cash Money,” but I love his flow and energy on this.
Da Drought 3 is a double album, but Weezy F Baby’s creativity and the stellar beat selection tapping tracks from Nas, Jay-Z, Mobb Deep, Yeezy, and tons more make it an easy 68 minutes. ‘The radio be on and whatever song comes on, add that instrumental to it,’ Lil Wayne said of the project.
Da Drought 3 stands out to me as one of the best mixtapes of all time. Wayne’s full creativity is on display with a carefree approach. It was a free mixtape, so why not have fun with it? In the process, why not make the best evidence for being the Greatest Rapper Alive?
-Broc
OFWGKTA were easily one of the edgiest, but fresh and exciting groups to show up in underground hip-hop at the time Radical was dropped. I remember I was just about to go into my senior year of high school when this tape hit the waves of every music nerd I knew at the time. Even people who weren’t too privy to anything in hip-hop were geeking out over songs like “Splatter”, “Orange Juice”, and Earl Sweatshirt’s notorious “Drop”. While these songs and others presented some of the coolest instrumentals or even remixes of older instrumentals used elsewhere (to my knowledge, the beats for “Up” and “Orange Juice” were definitely used by Wiz Khalifa and Gucci Mane respectively) that I’d heard since some of the greats of the late ‘90s or early 2000’s, personally.
The tape had a lot of the same spirit, in that way at least, as some of the earliest releases by the late, great MF DOOM. Even with the less-than-perfect production value, and with a host of extremely edgy and sadly poor-taste, suggestive lyrical content – this would be the spark of a growing flame that would once more change the course of the game for ages to come. Odd Future brought up an immense level of talent amongst virtually all personnel involved, as we get to hear the likes of Frank Ocean, Mike G, Hodgy Beats, Tyler, The Creator, and Earl Sweatshirt making a name for themselves as early as teen years. Despite the palpable angst and edgy playfulness of what this era was for them, two of my favorite songs from this still hold a special place in my heart, “Everything That’s Yours” and “Up”, and I’d venture to guess that these tracks still remain a staple for many others as well.
Trust me, writing about this tape and calling back to a slew of awful things spat by the mouths of a younger Tyler, Earl, Jasper, Domo Genesis, or even one of the only times we hear from Left Brain on the tape, is not at all lost on me. To some, and perhaps even the members of the group, this tape may be a sour memory in that it seemed like the ‘shock value’, if you will, was upped to 150% at all given times. One might argue the edginess is what helped propel their name around all the more, but I’d like to believe the sheer level of having a phenomenal ear for beats, as well as albeit witty wordplay, is really the value found within Radical, and all subsequent releases. Thankfully, it seems we’ll never have to endure edgelord Tyler & Co ever again for the foreseeable future, and most of the group still appear to be releasing bangers to date, but even as sour as this sweet memory of a mixtape may be – it is an unarguably pivotal point for Odd Future that all O.G. fans should likely remember.
-Dylan Nicole Lawson