2014: The New Mixology The Collapse of the Mixtape-Album Distinction and the Liberation of Hip-Hop

We celebrate the end of the year the only way we know how: through lists, essays, and mixes. Join us as we explore the music and films that helped define the year. More from this series


The cassette tape’s status as a live document changed in the 1980s, though. As the decade progressed, more and more up-and-coming performers were using its flexibility to announce their arrival on the rap scene and jockey for a record deal, with the likes of DJ Clue?, Kid Capri, DJ Quik, C.I.A. (an early incarnation of N.W.A.), and DMX first making their mark via mixtape appearances. Pushing further forward in time, the increasing lucrativeness of the rap single and album meant that, as the 80s rolled into the 90s, the purity of the format was gradually sullied by its transformation into either a cut-price stepping stone to a record contract or a pared-down teaser for an upcoming long-player. Consequently, by the turn of the century, with cassettes like 50 Cent’s 50 Cent is the Future, Snoop Dogg’s Welcome to tha Church Vol. 1, and The Conglomerate’s Arsenal for the Streets Pt. 1 (ft. Busta Rhymes), the mixtape had become a less professionally honed mirror of the albums it aped.

In other words, what originated as an “authentic” expression of the streets had been debased into an “inauthentic” expression of the music industry.

Mixtape Rediscoveries of Hip-Hop’s Excess, Boldness and Hedonism

Lil B being excessive, bold, and hedonistic

It’s only now, when the waning profitability of the album has reduced the incentive to reproduce its barely negotiable format, that mixtapes are gradually separating themselves from the deleterious and parasitic influence of the recording industry, while simultaneously resituating themselves as a genuine rival to the artistic merits of the album. To take perhaps the most prominent or notorious case study, this would help explain why in 2014 we’ve witnessed some insanely looooong mixtapes from Lil B, beginning with the 101-song 05 Fuck Em (actually released on December 24, 2013), moving to February’s Basedworld Paradise and June’s Hoop Life, and then ending with the still-lengthy 22-song Ultimate Bitch in October.

Of course, it would be valid to say that some of Lil B’s cartoonish output is hardly a return to authenticity and reality in hip-hop, yet it’s precisely because of his pathological aversion to quality control that he represents a reversion toward greater self-expression for himself, his genre, and his culture. His uncensored raps are in no way shy about offending various norms or interests; his gratuitous productivity and unwillingness to filter out his own chaff is a perfect figure for the pride (or arrogance) that characterizes so much hip-hop, and the likes of the 855-song Based Freestyle Mixtapes from 2012 are also a no-less perfect symbol for a media-saturated, information-overloaded century.

In other words, Lil B would’ve been a much less fascinating personality in hip-hop if he’d been constrained by the monetized dictates of the album industry, and the same goes for the likes of Sicko Mobb with late December’s Super Saiyan Vol. 1 mixtape, iLoveMakonnen with May’s Drink More Water 4, Lil Herb with February’s Welcome to Fazoland, and Jon Connor with March’s BestInTheWorld: The Late Registration of a College Dropout Who Had a Dark Twisted Fantasy of 808s and Heartbreak. All of these artist hold the promise that, unless the two formats wholly collapse into each other and become one, the mixtape may very well outstrip the ever-dependable album in the years to come in terms of boldness, creativity, and honesty.

Moreover, the proliferation of lone mixtape rappers operating out of their basements in isolation from larger and more tight-knit communities is, in its own sad and perverse way, a much more accurate representation of present-day rap’s atomized cultural soil than that evoked by the album. In the latter’s increasingly outdated claims to widespread popularity or even universal appeal, it potentially deceives us into supposing that hip-hop is still as community-driven and unified as it once was in the 1970s and 80s. Yet self-absorbedly hedonistic and sexualized mixtapes like 100s’s IVRY and Beatking’s Gangsta Stripper Music 2 severely undermine this notion, making no pretense of having much of a social conscience or being part of larger movements (which arguably no longer exist), and evincing that, as lamentable as it might be, the 21st-century mixtape is finally becoming as reflective of its creators and their lives as it once was in decades past.

The Wonderful World of Marketing and the Rise of Awful Records

18+ poster in London

Even now, at a time when the mixtape is shaking off its image as a glorified audition tailored to please a board of executives, such executives and hucksters still carry undue influence over the musical landscape, since the major aspect that demarcates the mixtape from the album this year has been the often parasitic intent of labels to profit off of the creative foundations that have been laid by the humble tape. To take a potentially controversial example, 18+ released Trust in November on Houndstooth, and even though this release was described as their “debut” album, all of its songs had been taken from the three mixtapes the duo had recorded over the three previous years. Disregarding the rejigged tracklist, the content was identical, which forces the conclusion that a large dimension that qualified it as an album was its surrounding label-driven marketing campaign and the fact you had to pay for it. In addition, their interview with this site revealed that their choice of tracks was restricted by copyright issues, so it could even be classified as a backward step for their freedom of expression.

Yet for whatever bizarre or incoherent reason, the album as a form is still credited with more prestige and significance than what it often leeches from, despite this and other instances demonstrating that, at least for many rap releases, the album serves as a sort of rebranding of pre-existing music, a contrivance designed to maximize the profit that interlopers can yield from the toil of others. Phrased in more obvious terms, the album is a commodity, and it’s had the same c. 45-minute shape over these years and decades not because this is how musicians would naturally speak for themselves if left to their own devices, but because it’s economical for merchandisers and fits nicely on a single disc.

With this underlying commercialism in mind, it becomes easy to imagine that so many of the notable hip-hop releases of the year might’ve been more fertile breeding grounds for innovation, progression, and experimentation had they been “mixtapes” rather than “albums.” To drop a couple more names, Wiz Khalifa’s 28 Grams mixtape was more exploratory than his Blacc Hollywood album, while Future’s Monster tape from October was bolder than April’s Honest. The same token could be applied to Mac Miller’s Faces, which surpassed last year’s Watching Movies with the Sound Off in terms of stylistic variation.

These releases demonstrate that when rappers and producers are separated from the restrictions and bottom lines of the record industry, they’re more likely to produce music that’s truer to their visions as artists and to their worldviews as people. Or as iLoveMakonnen said of Lil B, detachment from the profit motive enables them all to say, “fuck this shit, I’m recording my music in my room and I’m putting it out.” At best, the 21st-century album seems to have become what the mixtape was and is still often regarded as being: supplementary material that promotes and commemorates touring acts, generating the buzz that will hopefully coax listeners into shelling out for a live ticket or two, or into buying some “hard” (that is, undownloadable) merchandise.

Against this, some might argue that, even if the disappearance of the album as it’s been traditionally produced, marketed, and distributed will be a boon for creativity, the parallel disappearance of the labels that depend on album profit-streams will conversely be a drain, since it will deprive creatives of a once-dependable source of backing. Labels handle a mass of tedious fluff — bookings, promotional activity, financial logistics — that can often distract musicians from their craft, so it’s plausible to suppose that the evanescence of publishing houses will have the knock-on effect of stranding the best and most promising rappers in a mire of chores and bureaucracy.

Yet 2014 hints at a way out of this potential quagmire in the form of renegade record labels such as Awful Records, an Atlanta-based collective formed in 2012 by the likes of Father, Richposlim, KeithCharlesSpacebar, and Archibald Slim. Since their inception, Awful have been releasing everything free-of-charge, functioning as a collectivized center of moral and practical support for its diverse roster of artists, rather than as an old-school, album-focused, money-making machine. When asked by The FADER if there was a plan for the label, here’s how they responded:

Father: I want to keep the brand pure. I’ve been trying to limit crossover and all that. Any time I’m like, “Ah, I should just go pay an engineer,” I’ll be like, “Nah, fuck that. I need to sit here and learn how to do it.”

Richposlim: I want a Cash Money Baby deal. Fuck it. Fuck a major label. It’s 2014, if you’re not smart enough to stay at a major label and learn how to use the internet and market, then you’re a dumbass, in my opinion. All we need to do is get our business papers and do this shit legit and we’ll be printing our own money. Tek 9 has never dropped a studio album and he made the Forbes list. All I need is dope, which I’ve got, because I’ve got 11 niggas who are dope as hell, and a way to get it out there, which I’ve got, the internet and Spotify and all that.

This year, they’ve boasted such enviable mixtapes as Archibald Slim’s MRUNLUCKYLEFTY, Father’s Young Hot Ebony, and Ethereal’s Cactus Jack, and even though it remains to be seen to just what extent they’ll flourish, they nonetheless hold promise that a musical world dominated by mixtapes can still accommodate and benefit from the frameworks synonymous with labels.


However, a disclaimer is in order. This account of mixtapes has been a little idealized up until now, since for every trailblazing niggas on the moon or Welcome to Fazoland, there were hundreds of barely differentiable versions of the same basic template. To name names, 2014 has witnessed such love letters to face-masking homogeneity as Spade Gucci’s doom-laden Fuck Yo Co-Sign, Cap 1’s no-less combative Open Bar, and Derek King’s pretty-boy Fake I.D., all of which do little to step beyond the low-slung bass lines, clipped percussion, abused auto-tune, and somber keys that conspire to give hip-hop an unchanging name.

These nondescript entries into the rap history books shouldn’t be that surprising though, since one longstanding definition of the mixtape casts it as a showcase for fresh raps and fresh-faced rappers layered over stock beats, whereas the album is usually typified as boasting new (if not strictly original) productions and arrangements. It’s therefore premature to herald the erosion of the distinction between the two media just yet, not least because those mixtapes that give the best albums a run for their money are still relatively few and far between. That said, homogeneous albums are in no short supply either, so perhaps even in this regard any perceived superiority is fundamentally an artefact of the promotional clout and machinery that functions to imbue the album with a haloed mystique. Indeed, one of the main reasons why artists are still interested in labels and their “albums” is the superior promotional edge such imprints provide them in an age of ubiquitous DIY rappers, an edge so prized that signed artists often use it to advertise the mixtapes they’d supposedly left behind in preference for albums.

And it might just be the marketing power of record labels that perpetuates the album past its sell-by date, since if the mixtapes of 2014 are anything to go by, there’s going to be progressively less to distinguish the two formats on an artistic level in future years. From Rich Gang’s Tha Tour Part 1, to Rome Fortune’s Beautiful Pimp 2, and to James Ferraro’s SUKI GIRLZ, the lowly mixtape has transcended its beginnings as a live bootleg and its middlings as a wannabe album to become a valid artform in its own right. Maybe it will never erode the divine aura of the album, and maybe it will never reach the same levels of marketing-driven prestige itself, but if there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that the mixtape is now the primary breeding ground for rap’s most exciting and innovative releases.

We celebrate the end of the year the only way we know how: through lists, essays, and mixes. Join us as we explore the music and films that helped define the year. More from this series


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