Women's Media Nation | Social, political, and cultural issues relating to women

The Art of the Mixed Tape

posted by ChickSpeak
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 12:12pm CDT

Imagine you were handed an array of crayons, markers, paint, glitter - the works - and left in a plain, white room for as long as you needed to make your artistic vision, whatever it may be, come to life before your eyes. There are no rules, you don’t have to stay within in the lines, and you’re actually encouraged to splatter some color on to the floor and have some rough spots here and there.

While for most of us this could only have been a wild fantasy for our five-year-old selves, for up-and-coming rappers, this is the epitome of the mixtape.

And we’re not talking the Pretty in Pink-esque “I-made-a-mix-of-all-of-your-favorite-songs-and-put-it-on-one-cassette” mixtape here, chicks.

We’re talking the one thing that serves as a launching pad for today’s generation of hip-hop newbies, that could possibly catapult them to superstardom, or, better yet, getting signed.

Releasing mixtapes independently, as the vast majority of them are released, grants the artist an open platform to say just whatever it is they’d like, without the constraints or expectations of a major record label weighing them down.

And the results are usually better for it.

Here are just a few mixtapes that made up-and-coming rappers household names:

Drake, So Far Gone

At this point, Drake’s story is pretty well known…but that doesn’t make it any less amazing. Once known for playing wheelchair-bound Jimmy on the massive Canadian series Degrassi: The Next Generation, the Toronto native, born Aubrey Graham, turned his attention to music and set out to dominate the game. And with the 2009 release of So Far Gone, that’s exactly what he did.

The impressively professional sounding mixtape spawned a number of radio hits, like “Houstlanatavegas,” ”Successful,” and “I’m Going In” and included collaborations with a powerhouse of big names, including Trey Songz, Young Jeezy, and Lil Wayne, who eventually signed the young Ontario export to his Young Money imprint.

Drake deservedly toots his own horn on “Forever,” which, again, featured the fast-rising rapper alongside established names (this time, Eminem and Kanye West), where he says, “Dropped the mixtape/[It] sounded like an album/Who’d have thought a country-wide tour would be the outcome?/Everybody got a deal/I did it without one.”

His first full length album, Thank Me Later, is due to be released this summer. (In the meantime, check out the Billboard-topping single, “Over.”)

Asher Roth, The Greenhouse Effect

We all know Asher Roth now for his hit, “I Love College,” which was popular on campuses and radio airwaves alike. But before the Morrisville, Pennsylvania native was rapping about his infatuation with “getting pizza for a dollar a slice,” he was making waves with his mixtape, The Greenhouse Effect.

A brave foray into hip-hop from the self-described “boy from the ‘burbs,” Roth’s mixtape debut attempted to put an end to the inevitable comparisons to fellow white rapper Eminem and establish him as a rapper all his own (one who raps about sex, weed, and well, being white).

With his refreshing combination of simple rhymes and frat-boy fun, Roth did just that. He eventually scored a record deal with Street Records Corporation, the branch of Universal Records that also signed Akon back in 2003.

Since then, Roth has proved he has staying power with his chart-topping studio album Asleep in the Bread Aisle and its hits, “She Don’t Wanna Man” with Keri Hilson and “Be by Myself” with Cee-Lo.

His second mixtape, the wordy Seared Foie Gras with Quince and Cranberry, was released earlier in the year and is just as buzzworthy as its predecessor.

Kid Cudi, A Kid Named Cudi

Before he was selling out arenas and collaborating with a myriad of acts, ranging from MGMT to Snoop Dogg, Kid Cudi was just asking us all to embrace the Martian with his 2008 mixtape, A Kid Named Cudi.

The Cleveland rapper, who burst onto the scene after releasing “Day N Nite” from Cudi, has had one of the most meteoric rises to fame in quite a while. After signing to Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. label, which houses names like John Legend and Common, being featured on both West’s 808’s and Heartbreak and Jay-Z’s The Blueprint III, the Ohio native released his own album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day to rave reviews from fans and critics worldwide.

While he plans out the release of his sophomore album, a journey you can follow on his blog, you can catch Scott “Kid” Mescudi on the new HBO hit, “How to Make it in America,” which, it turns out, is not about Kid Cudi’s life. Shame.

By the way, chicks, the best part about mixtapes is that they’re free! Let the downloading begin!

Faithlynn Morris has found a new love in mixtapes. She loves the creativity and the rawness of them all and actually wishes she had some rapping skill so she could release one of her own.