History of Mixtapes

Something that has become very popular in modern Hip-Hop culture is the mixtape.  Not a lot of peopleknow the history of the mixtape. 

A mixtape is a compilation of songs recorded in a specific order, traditionally onto cassette tape.  Mixtapes, were initially intended to reflect the musical tastes of its compiler, it could be a selected list of favorite songs, to a conceptual mix of songs with a particular theme or mood.  Homemade mixtapes became common in the 1980s. The problem was cassettes were not good enough to be considered for music recording until further advances in tape formulations. The growth of the mixtape was encouraged by improved quality and increased popularity of audio cassette players in car systems and by the introduction of the Sony Walkman in 1979.

There are two different types of mixtapes, private mixtapes and public/”party mixtapes”. Private mixtapes were intended for specific listeners or private social events.Public mixtapes/ “party mixtapes” were club recordings of Dj’s, which were to be sold later. DJs a such as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc would of distribute recordings of their club performances via audio cassette, as well as customized recordings. These recordings were of higher technical ability than homemade mixtapes and incorporated techniques such as beat matching and scratching.


Nowadays mixtapes are now used by labels and new artists as means of promotion to generate  hype. This is something that is frequently used by unsigned artists to recognition from record labels. Signed artists release mixtapes to promote future studio albums. Most rappers use mixtapes as a way to gain street credibility and appeal more to the market. 


Mixtapes usually have the same artist and can sometimes be difficult to differentiate from a studio album,although mixtapes will usually have much lower production values than a studio album. Mixtapes may contain contain numerous collaborations, remixes, freestyles and voice-overs. It is most common for mixtapes nowadays to be freestyles of popular songs by other artists.


Most mixtapes are free and distributed for free on the Internet. If there are physical copies they  are cheaply packaged.