Calling yourself a rapper because you download a bunch of beats and a bootleg recording program off the internet and put out a mixtape is no different than calling yourself a chef because you made a box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.
The processes are almost identical: take a collection of pre-prepared ingredients and add your own twist to a pre-determined outcome. The result is something that tastes/sounds exactly the same as what we have experienced in the past.
Bragging about doing something anyone can do is socially awkward.
Imagine having friends on Facebook spamming your walls about how they just made macaroni and cheese?
“CHECK OUT MY NEW MAC AND CHEEZE FRESH OFF THE STOVE! ONLY $5! HAVING A RELEASE PARTY THIS SATURDAY AT JIMMY’S TACOS! THIS IS THE REALEST MAC AND CHEEZE OUT RIGHT NOW. NONE OF THAT WATERED DOWN BULL$HIT! SWAG!”
Bad look.
Mixtapes were known as party tapes back in the 1970s. DJs would record their party mixes and sell them like they were albums. In 1994, DJ Clue became the top DJ in the mixtape circuit by including unreleased freestyles and songs on his–most notable on that mixtape were two unreleased songs from Notorius B.I.G’s album Ready to Die.
As the millennium changed, rappers began putting out mixtapes as “unofficial albums”, and as a way to release music record labels wouldn’t support.
The nice thing about being in the Northwest, is that we don’t have a problem worrying about what labels will support (because they don’t support anything we do). As artists, this gives us this terrific freedom to make whatever kind of music we want!
“The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day without fail one should consider himself as dead. This is the substance of the way of the samurai.” ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Tsunetomo is saying you can let go of all of the unnecessary stresses of life if you live it like you are already dead. We can translate this as an artist in the Northwest by saying, “Make music like you’re never going to get signed because you are definitely never going to get signed.”
If you make music without the worry of whether or not you are going to blow up and put the Northwest on the map, you can let go of all of the stresses of comparing yourself to what you are hearing on the radio and make music that is unique and an expression of who you are.
By saying you are “putting out a mixtape”, you are setting an expectation (with your audience and yourself) that you are going to be making a product emulating what you believe to be a mixtape.
Rappers have a problem letting their ego get in their way of remembering that most of them are average (and this will always be the case thanks to the definition of the word average).
Let’s examine this bell shaped curve of rappers with mixtapes coming out.
Rappers get progressively better as we move to the right.
There are a few rappers that are worse than you, and you make fun of them when you listen to their music. There are rappers who all rappers have heard of and listen to, but they haven’t caught on with the mainstream public yet. On the very right we have J Cole and Meek Mill (who are the best).
In the middle we have this ocean of rappers who all sound similar (or the same), have a mixtape coming out later this month, hate on each other, and annoy people on social media.
It is impossible to stand out amongst all the clutter.
Admitting that you are a part of this majority is the first step.
You are not a good enough rapper to build a fan base regurgitating cliché hip-hop topics over 25 tracks recorded on lo-fi production.
Do something unique and give mixtapes back to the DJ’s.
Thanks.
Out Here.