So, I totally scrapped the lousy idea I had for this diary early in the week. It might have been fine and certainly would have engaged your eyeballs for a moment or two. But that will have to wait for another time. Because …
In a word, these tracks are tight. But they deserve so much more than a word. So I will drop a few hundred about the concept of the mixtape before I get you my thoughts about the Hamilton mixtape.
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Top Comments is itself a mixtape. We take a bunch of stuff, throw it together, and create something new from the dialectic. So, let’s take a look back before we move on to the review.
History of the Mixtape
Mixtapes and Hip Hop go back to DJ Kool Herc and the birth of the movement in the Bronx. Cassette tapes were the ultimate secret weapon: portable, stealthy, and replicated with ease. For those of you born since the advent of the mp3 player, this was revolutionary.
The mixtape is the name of the game for independent music producers. Check this (Not At All Definitive) History of Hip Hop Mixtapes from 2013 by Noz.
One of the tremendous truths that’s often overlooked about hip hop’s rise is that it represents one of the then-rare instances in which a localized folk movement morphed into large mainstream one while remaining relatively undiluted.
But like any small culture in the pre-Internet age, it could only move so far on its own. The vinyl record, the format most commonly identified with early hip hop (partially due to a million moms making semi-ironic wiki-wiki scratching motions) certainly did quite a bit to put hip hop out there.
But vinyl was a clunky and expensive vehicle, one requiring vast networks of pressing plants and distributors. Cassettes, on the other hand, could move great distances and with stealth. They could fit into a pocket or fill a duffle bag, and they could be replicated en masse with ease.
There is one caveat to the cassette’s ability to be replicated. With this recording technology, there is an effect known as signal loss in which each successive generation of dub degrades in quality. The copy of a copy was not as good as the original. By about 4 or 5 generations, the dub becomes more noise than signal.
and, as Nas said, “don’t put me in your box if the shit eats tapes”
Hip Hop didn’t care. MCs and DJs were creating new work on the daily despite, or perhaps because of, the impermanence of their art. Hip Hop is an experiential art form. Recordings are great, but the culture lives and breathes and expands every day. The knowledge that your art will soon be replaced is central to two of Hip Hop’s pillars. The cassette and graffiti both existed in a semi-permanent space with the knowledge that they would eventually die away.
This knowledge is the true beauty of Hip Hop to me. Studio albums are awesome. RZA is a genius. Dre is a sculptor. Premiere created the soundtrack of my youth. But to experience Hip Hop is to see it live and participate somehow. Bang a drum. Holler back during call and response. Touch stage to share your own rhymes and stories. Join the circle. Have some fun.
In hip hop’s early years, cassettes served as its document of record through bootleg recordings of old-school rap routines and DJ sets. The relative ease of re-recordings and low duplication cost opened up new and extensive options for self-documentation to artists and listeners alike.
Official Cold Crush Brothers recorder Elvis Moreno, AKA Tape Master, would get access to plug his tape recorder directly into the soundboard, while an unsanctioned partygoer might just place their box somewhere in the crowd and hit the record button.
Dozens of tapes of prominent crews like The Furious Five and The Crash Crew multiplied like rabbits from there on out, sold at shows and swapped through quiet networks of traders and collectors.
I am old enough to remember the mixtape as an actual message that was eagerly anticipated, anxiously awaited, and dutifully committed to memory. I heard my first Wu Tang tracks on a mixtape that someone’s cousin sent to him back in the early 1990’s. The album, Gravediggaz, remains some of the hardest and most honest underground music I have ever heard. It was a true “Hey World, Check This” moment.
While hip hop centers with weaker industry ties like Oakland and Houston developed vast independent micro-industries around professionally produced, barcoded, and distributed cassette-only releases in the ’90s, the New York indies of that era never seemed to prioritize the format for official releases.
Most of the New York rap music that was manufactured by larger independent labels was, and still is, difficult to come by on tape. Even as ’90s emporiums like Mix Kings industrialized the underground production process, the distribution network tended to operate wholly separate from record distributors and chain stores, moving instead through street vendors and niche shops.
And that’s the thing about the mixtape. It was a badge of honor. It might have been proof you were there. It was certainly proof that you knew something special. It was how you found your tribe long before the internet.
The mixtape was like water in the desert.
The Mixtape Museum
That’s right. Hip Hop has grown up enough to merit its own historians. We are all storytellers. it’s in the lifeblood of the artform that keeps it growing and spreading.
The MXM [Mixtape Museum] is devoted to advancing public understanding and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and impact mixtapes have made around the world. While encouraging the research of mixtapes as records of time, place and situation, it will also examine the individuals that have shaped their existence. Through exhibitions, technology, publications, symposia, collaborative projects, and other partnerships, our aim is to create an environment that encourages dialogue between scholars, music professionals, and enthusiasts on the mixtapes various functions in society.
If this diary has piqued your interest in the history of the mixtape, head on over. There is more than I can justly condense for the purposes of the diary. There are tracks and discussions and even scholarly articles. Do yourself the favor of digging into the MXM’s crates to find some history for your ears and mind.
Murky Legal Waters
The mixtape is a collaborative art, as are all things Hip Hop. Back in the day, it was about people just recording the parties on the block and sharing the results. The mixtape took an interesting turn over the decades, as DJs began putting together mixtapes in the studio. Often, a mixtape is a producer or artist who is putting out the equivalent of a book of short stories. As Hip Hop is a dialectical artform, sampling became prevalent in the mixtape world.
NPR talked to DJ Drama, an Atlanta based DJ, about sampling and the legal ramifications involved.
INTERVIEWER: Mixtapes are a compilation of a lot of different voices from hip-hop, and you are now facing felony charges under RICO, which was used to basically get people who were big-time gangsters back in the day. Tell us a little bit about what happened and why?
DJ DRAMA: Well, on January 16th - I call it the day the game changed - you know, I was back to work. It was the day after Martin Luther King's birthday. So I was at my office/studios in downtown Atlanta and about 5:30, I was outside about to an interview when about two or three Tahoes pulled up on the side of our street. You know, about 15 to 20 cops jumped out of the cars, you know, full gear on, M-16s drawn, you know, pointed directly at us. They put me under arrest. They - you know, they told me that I was being charged under the RICO law with bootlegging and racketeering. And also the RIAA was involved in the raid of my studio and they confiscated, pretty much, everything in my studio, you know, under - so, you know, they…
That would be the Recording Industry Association of America, in conjunction with Federal Law Enforcement, arresting and confiscating an artist’s entire means of production and work product. The recording industry is dominated by three major corporations who work like hell to hold onto every penny they can claim under copyright law.
Don’t get me wrong, I respect copyright law in concept and the rights that it maintains for artists to profit from their work. It is just that Hip Hop defies current copyright understanding. It is, as I say, a collaborative and shared art form. The rules on the street are just different. Again, the mixtape is the surfacing of underground talent into larger consciousness.
INTERVIEWER: And some people have found it very interesting that there's been this legal action against folks like you who put out mixtapes when at the same time mixtapes can go and blow up album sales because of how they are viral.
DJ DRAMA: What I do and what mixtapes are and what mixtapes DJs are, is vital to the hip-hop community and vital to hip-hop as a business. I mean, if I could just name you three people - 50 Cent, Jay-Z, P. Diddy, you know, those are three very successful people that are probably worth well over a billion dollars combined that have all used mixtapes as a platform to their success in their business and their music.
And, you know, I myself, you know, take the example of mixtape idea with Young Jeezy called "Trap or Die." Before Young Jeezy's album came out on Def Jam, you know, you can ask anybody in the industry and it helped Young Jeezy sell well over two million records for Def Jam. So, you know, the industry really needs to thank me for what I do instead of put M-16s to my head.
Paul’s Boutique: the ultimate mixtape as album
My personal favorite album of all time, or at the very least my “Desert Island Album” is Paul’s Boutique released in 1989 on Capitol Records by the Beastie Boys. To my mind, it is the single most layered, read sample heavy, album from top to bottom in the Hip Hop archive. The album contains so many samples and references that there is a website to catalog them.
The album is a relic of its time. The producers and artists copied tons of samples without care. The copyright law concerning samples had yet to be written and the album stands as a proud example of what Hip Hop can do to reinvent older sounds. Paul’s Boutique samples everything from Bowie to Johnny Cash to the radio jingle for the clothing store in Brooklyn that gave the album its name.
I’m just going to leave this here for you to listen to the album in its entirety. Shit is dope, IMHO.
The Hamilton Mixtape
This mixtape is a celebration of the culture that wove the community quilt for Hamilton. The show is many things but they are all tied together by Lin Manuel Miranda’s experiences growing up in Manhattan. The story of Hamilton is the story of the immigrants and strivers that make up the fabric of our nation. Miranda’s play uses the language of Hip Hip to tell the story of one immigrant’s rise to power and fame in a new nation he helped to create and build for us.
I will divide the songs into two categories, the covers and the new stuff. The Covers are beautiful and bring new reflection on the original work. They are continuing the conversation by adding their interpretations of the story. The New Stuff is also continuing the conversation but by adding new verses that tell more stories of striving and success.
The Covers
The New Stuff
The covers are good. You should listen to them. They all bring out something new in the material from John Legend’s gospel tinged “History Has Its Eyes on You” to Queen Latifah’s inspired rap on Sia’s verion of “Helpless”. Each cover track offers a new take on great material. Kelly Clarkson’s “Its Quiet Uptown” proves that the show and the culture have room for every flavor of American music.
But it is the new stuff that truly shines on this album. Nas and crew turn “Wrote My Way Out” into the story of every kid that wanted to get out of the neighborhood they grew up in to make their lives better for their families. “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)” is a multilingual multi layered response to the famous line in the show. If you know a little Spanish, you will get the full power of the track.
Jill Scott playing Maria Reynolds trying to seduce Alexander Hamilton in “Say Yes To This” lets you know just how hard it is to say no to Jilly from Philly. Wiz Khalifa also comes strong with “Washingtons By Your Side”, the closest thing to bling rap you will find on the album. And The Roots bring down the house with “Who Tells Your Story”. As usual, Common brings the lyrical depth that the ensemble seeks to inspire in its collaborations.
But don’t listen to me. Go find the tracks and experience them for yourself. It is worth the time, effort, and money. This album will be with us for years. It has made its mark on Hip Hop and mixtape history. You will be glad you did. I promise.
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From your humble diarist:
meps makes a challenge to the Democratic Party and rejects the call to abandon identity politics in Denise Oliver Velez’ Front Pager this morning My 'identity' can get me killed.
Dale and indybend dissect Mike Pence's ability to lie professionally in a pretty succinct manner in Hunter’s FP analysis this afternoon Mike Pence defends Trump's lies about millions of 'illegal' votes by declaring the lies 'refreshing'.
uniquity pulls no punches in response to Conservatives, Please Spare Us Your Phony Concern About The Resurgence of Trump-Inspired Nazism by dartagnan.
From the Marti:
also in Denise's FP diary, libera nos gives us a perfect definition of the alt-right bunch.
Found this little gem from Friend of the court "Gold in sacks" is sure to become an internet meme!” in Saturday Night Live had fun with Trump's Twitter obsession while delivering a scary reality by Egberto Willies.
From elfling:
Tamar says something so beautifully in Denise’s FP Identity Diary that I have struggled to articulate at times.
fff
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