Now for the B Side: A message from the late Mazaradi Fox to Rick Ross; If you still here you have entered the hood side of Substack Magnetic brought you home remember that
Stack Bundles
I have a very dope piece dropping in
about the late, great, Far Rock’s Saviour. So I won’t go into too much detail. But believe me he has some legendary freestyles that you want to hear. Hustler’s Go Crazy is one of my favorite.
Fabolous
Keeping the Desert Storm DJ Clue fraternity going I would be remiss not to mention Fab’s Trilogy mixtape run in the Soul Tapes. I remember these classics with plenty of joints for the ladies and the tough guys to resonate with. Fab is one of few artists that made me wish I was from Brooklyn. Not to mention he has plenty of other classics like the There is no Competition and Summertime Shootout series.
Wiz Khalifa
I couldn’t make a piece like this and not say Wiz Khalifa’s name. While he may not be the most revered for his catalog on the mixtape circuit, Kush and Orange Juice is easily a top 10 mixtape of all time. And I remember my grandmother trying her best to get me not to listen because she felt it would influence me to smoke weed. I swore it wouldn’t, but obviously she was right. But then again, pretty much everyone in my family smokes weed and has never hid it from me. So it’s likely I was on this trajectory long before my Virgo brother Wiz told me about smoking joints with fine women. Also shoutout Cabin Fever that was super classic with some fire Lex Luger production.
Jeezy
Dat N*gga crazy girl don’t say nun to ‘em. I would recite under my breath while in the passenger seat of my dad’s car going way too fast. Something about that Young Jeezy Dey Know freestyle made him think he was a Nascar driver. He was a legend on the mixtape circuit as well that I have to mention, but I always was on the GuWop side of that beef. Not to mention, Jeezy did a lot more on the mainstream circuit than Gucci, so his stake isn’t as strong in my opinion.
Waka Flocka Flame
I truly did love them gun sounds before I knew what that really meant. But I have to shoutout Waka for keeping that Gucci legacy of wacky mixtape artwork going. He had the streets on lock from the A back to his hometown in Queens. Where the Antney family is like neighborhood royalty.
Nicki Minaj
Speaking of that Antney legacy and while Queens is the topic I have to mention Nicki’s mixtape run. Really for my lady’s sake and the title of this piece I would sound crazy if I didn’t. I remember recording I Get Crazy to use as a ringtone when I was 9 years old. And she had a few Young Money tracks on her first mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty that I was a big fan of. There was a point in time where it was cool to be a brother and a Nicki fan, but those days are over now. Shout out to the Barbz tho and shoutout the MB’z. (Insider only my girl would get it.)
Dipset
Like I said earlier on, it has been debated on which super group from the streets of New York did this mixtape thing first. But if I’m starting with G-Unit I have to end with my Uptown guys. They got too many Kay Slay classics to ignore. And aside from the early mixtapes I gotta mention some individual joints. Like Godwill’n by Juelz and Cam’ron and Vado’s classic collaborations. And my G-Unit vs. Dipset mixtape can be found here.
Me on stage w/ Dipset at Howard Homecoming 2018
Outro
I can write about this for days on end. My mental discography of Hip Hop mixtapes is unnatural for someone my age. But I can only make these emails so long. A big part of my development were Odd Future’s Radical mixtape, Live Love A$AP of course, the Dreamchasers series, and the Lobby Runners mixtapes that introduced me to Young Thug and PeeWee Longway. Thank you for reading, and remember the importance of supporting independent music releases. These mixtapes have made these artists a decent amount of revenue from shows and even from sales for some of them and have given them careers without the help of any predatory labels. And remember this is all MY perspective on mixtapes so if you feel I left anyone out, I didn’t. Write your own mixtape piece if you want to give someone some light. Peace.
Honourable Mentionz