There was also a fuzz of sound. The recordings would deteriorate rapidly as listeners dubbed them for friends and friends dubbed them for acquaintances, each playback burying the sounds further in hiss. Thus these stories were told through

slowly self-destructing messages, like a childʼs game of telephone. “Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes,” Queensbridge rapper Nas once warned, but that fragility only amplified the mystique of the format.

—ANDREW NOSNITSKY (Noz), A (Not At All Definitive) History of Hip-Hop Mixtapes

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 2

MC Hammer, Please Hammer, Donʼt Hurt ʻEm (Capitol/EMI Records, 1990)

The preceding image is not of a hip-hop mixtape. This is a 1990 release from Capitol Records that sold on CD, cassette, and vinyl.1 Viacomʼs MTV brand was completely onboard with having “U Canʼt Touch” worm its way into mass

consciousness.2 MC Hammer combined with video director Rupert Wainwright to make his music sell like soda. Re-visit the clip sometime; MC Hammer actually moonwalks. Please Hammer Donʼt Hurt ʻEm sold diamond — in excess of 10

million copies.3 That too is Michael Jackson territory. Speaking of MJ — and in the American pop culture field, when arenʼt we talking about Mike?

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 3

1 “U Canʼt Touch This,” SongFacts, accessed September 30, 2014, http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=5745.

2 Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution (New York: Dutton Penguin, 2011)

3 Vladimir Bogdanov, ed., All Music Guide to Hip-hop: The Definitive Guide to Rap & Hip-hop (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 2003), 316.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 4

DJ Fletch & Lil Boosie, BAD (Trill Entertainment, 2009)

This is a mixtape. Or, rather, it is a representation of a contemporary digital mixtape — one that was never actually on

cassette. Weʼll dig into nomenclature a little bit later, but for now whatʼs important to know is that the subject here is not Quillʼs motherʼs gift or the romantic vessel that Nick Hornby went on about so well or much to do with Electronic Dance

Music compilations.4 My medium topic, a Bronx street bastard, creates gray-market value through highly-engaged audio mixes, and has done so in tape, CD, and digital forms.5 These are the mixtapes of which Iʼll speak. Just for a moment,

take note of how in 2009 DJ Fletch and MC Lil Boosie, aka Boosie Badazz of Baton Rouge, brazenly appropriated iconography from the era of MC Hammer — calling back to the pop power signifiers of Boosie and Fletchʼs youth. Lesser

known outside the American South, Boosie eats off mixtapes — turning online and CD exposure into guest appearances, on stage and in studio.6 (Boosie is among the more famous American MCs whoʼve circulated these living documents as a

means of keeping popular while locked up.) Down South scuttlebutt was that Jay Z delayed the release of his Blueprint 3 album, in order to avoid competing against this download. Hip-Hop mixtapes exist in a a silhouette of sound — hyper-local

and worldwide — so yʼall might not know about Boosie Bad Azz like you do Jay Z.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 5

4 Soundtrack. Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol.1. Hollywood Records, 2014, compact disc.; Nick Hornby, High Fidelity (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1995).

5 Johan Kugelberg, ed., Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop (New York: Rizzoli, 2007), 31; Steven J. Horowitz, “The Economy of Mixtapes: How Drake, Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T. Figured It Out,” Billboard, September 20, 2011, http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1168371/the-economy-of-mixtapes-how-drake-wiz-khalifa-big-krit-figured-it-out.

6 Shanel Odum, “Kick In the Door: Not even the NOPD can knock LIL BOOSIEʼs hustle,” Vibe, August, 2008, 64.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 6

DJ Drama and Lil Wayne, Dedication 2 (101 Distribution, 2006)

This raw cover art fronts one of the two or three seminal “underground” mixtapes of our present century — and there are,

as you can imagine, more mixtapes — download, CD, and cassette — than one can quantify.7 Copies of copies lay in the audience mix. But the Gangsta Grillz Dedication tapes which ran through the aughts were special. The Katrina-era Dirty

South scene had come to regard DJs differently than New York and LA — with a more freewheeling regard for how tastes get made — and on the second offering in the “Gangsta Grillz” Dedication series, DJ Drama and Lil Wayne changed how

mixtapes can function in the pop music marketplace. We hadnʼt previously heard such a proficient MC rhyme with such sustained hunger.8

Identifiable even now by Dramaʼs austere beats built on frequently illegal samples, Dedication 2 sold well enough to land

on Billboardʼs chart, topping at 69.9 Consider that the work could easily be downloaded by net-savvy fans, and itʼs clear how monumentally popular the product ultimately became. iTunes sold a digital version. When the series began, Weezy

was but an interesting afterthought on the national scene. He left Dedication deep in the Best Rapper Alive conversation. Weezy would go on to graduate Drake from the mixtape circuit to the world of corporate events. 10

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 7

7 Michael Gursky, “The 30 Greatest Hip-Hop Mixtapes of All Time,” Thought Catalogue, July 21, 2014, http://thoughtcatalog.com/michael-gursky/2014/07/the-30-greatest-hip-hop-mixtapes-of-all-time/.

8 Peter Macia, “Lil Wayne/Dj Drama, Dedication 2,” Pitchfork Media, June 22, 2006, http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9148-dedication-2/.

9 Chris Richards, “Hip-hop Mixtapes: Unlicensed to Thrill,” The Washington Post online, July 5, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/07/04/AR2006070400883.html.

10 Insanul Ahmed, David Drake, Ernest Baker, Noah Callahan-Bever, Rob Kenner, “Best Rapper Alive, Every Year Since 1979,” Complex, April 2, 2013, http://www.complex.com/music/2013/04/the-best-rapper-alive-every-year-since-1979/2006.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 8

Iggy Azalea, The New Classic (Virgin EMI, 2014)

This 2014 document is not a hip-hop mixtape — or even a representation of a hip-hop mixtape. Its art direction nods to Miami Vice and coolly suggests universal niggatude. Yet it clearly lacks that illicit, on-the-fly quality of the preceeding two

images. Iggyʼs Svengali, the Atlanta mogul T.I., calls his operation Grand Hustle. And this installment might grow into hip-hopʼs grandest so far.11

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 911 Mercury/Grand Hustle, “Iggy Azalea signs to Mercury,” Mercury Records online, February 21, 2013, http://www.mercuryrecords.co.uk/news/2013/02/iggy-azalea-signs/.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 10

Gangsta Boo & BeatKing, Underground Cassette Tape Music

And this is a mixtape. Or a representation of a mixtape. Or two representations — I have not yet decided.

But I can tell you that mixtapes like this October of 2014 download, function as a purity signifier in the same way that plastic cassette cases with DJs and rappers on their inside labels were once the tangible factor in the street. Nothing says “close to the action” like one of these. On a personal note: In a form of pop expression that seems to have transgression baked into its essence, Iʼve found an almost mystical quality in its continuous combining of prerecorded songs and parts of prerecorded songs. My attraction probably derives from the ephemeral nature of the mixtape — a product that virtually every person over 40 has produced. Even in their digital incarnation, mixtapes remain about a moment and fade fast.

Hip-Hopʼs origin story flirts with, but does not quite meet the apocryphal. A deejayed party in the pre-rap music industry Bronx really did get energy from streetlights — power pilfered. More than one party.12 And an explosion of uptown New York DJs in 1977 directly followed looting of turntables the riots of that summer, and from a very edgy peopleʼs movement was on.13 Those hip-hop parties were manually recorded, often with a tape master physically holding a cassette recorder to a speaker.14 The “master” cassette stayed with the DJ and the copies would be distributed on the street and in parks by DJs themselves, then by taxicab drivers and mom-and-pop shop owners and, eventually, down-low product disseminators, such as Tape Kingz.15

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 11

12 Ben Adler, “A Mixtape Love Letter to the Parks that Birthed Hip-Hop,” Grist, July 2, 2013, http://grist.org/cities/a-mixtape-love-letter-to-the-parks-that-birthed-hip-hop/.

13 Johan Kugelberg, ed., Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop (New York: Rizzoli, 2007), 199.

14 “Most Famous for Recording Hip Hop Jams,” Hip Hop Facts on the Official Mr. Wiggles Website, accessed October 29, 2014, http://www.mrwiggles.biz/knowledge/hip-hop-facts.html

15 Tashitaka Kondo, “Supply and Demand: Thanks to Tape Kingz, Mixtapes Are Everywhere,” Vibe, August, 2004, 112.

But Iʼm getting ahead of myself. Way before there was such a thing as a rap music industry, the cassettes took a scene of less than 6,000 hip-hop kids to Westchester County, then to downtown Manhattan and then boroughs and nations beyond.16 Rap exploded in ʼ79. Radio played Kurtis Blowʼs “Christmas Rappinʼ” through Valentineʼs Day.17 Today mixtapes, such as the above digital joint from Beat King and a rappinʼ young Atlanta woman called Gangsta Boo, continue to lead from their crappily illuminated perch.18 Although wildly different from its original form, the contemporary mixtape scene is an unsupervised playground where some of the rap industryʼs leading figures have found their footing.19

Hip-Hop — nakedly born of late 20th-century neglect in urban America — has so far behaved differently in the worldwide marketplace than any other popular music form — distinct from film industry product and news media as well. In these pages I will argue, among other points, that an American rebellion ingrained in performance and sound distribution processes are what make the form unique. Mixtapes carry with them the sound of fighting back — at a party.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 12

16 Bill Adler, “Outside the Lines with Rap Genius, Episode 43,” 2014, http://genius.com/albums/Outside-the-lines-with-rap-genius/Otl-43-bill-adler

17 Steven Daly, “Hip-Hop Happens,”Vanity Fair online, November 2005, http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2005/11/hiphop200511

18 “Episode 068: Grandmixer DXT,” podcast, 1:17, posted on The Cipher Show May 12, 2014, http://theciphershow.com/episode/68/; Kelefa Sanneh, “Mixtapes Mix In the Marketing That Fuels the Hip-Hop Industry,” The New York Times online, July 20, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/arts/music/20sann.html?_r=0.

19 Kelefa Sanneh, “Mixtapes Mix In the Marketing That Fuels the Hip-Hop Industry,” The New York Times online, July 20, 2006.

Kanye Westʼs mentor, one Sean Carter, came into the music industry rich, from funding earned in the street pharmacy

trade, and demonstrated — years before Thomas Piketty — that having money is the best way to get more money.

“Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix)” is a 2005 Kanye West production. It doesnʼt appear on a mixtape, although itʼs worth noting that the trackʼs producer had a game-changing mixtape moment two years prior. Upon signing with Jay and

Damon Dashʼs Roc-a-Fella Records, Yeezy put out the introductory Get Well Soon. It featured “Through the Wire,” a song about the now-insanely-commodified talentʼs near-fatal car accident.20 Kanye rapped through a wired jaw, en route to

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 1320 Kanye West. Get Well Soon. Mixtape, 2003, compact disc.

Kanye West, featuring Jay Z. Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix). Roc-A-Fella, 2005, digital download. Accessed on RapGenius.com October 22, 2014, http://rap.genius.com/Kanye-west-diamonds-from-sierra-leone-remix-lyrics http://rap.genius.com/Kanye-west-diamonds-from-sierra-leone-remix-lyrics

unique buzz and airplay. We could not know at the time that Kanye would one day open an all-purpose creative agency,

but Through the Wire on did suggest an innate will to branding.21

But this is an image about Jay. Allow me to set up one of the more dynamic moments in the history of rap lyrical performance about the business of rap:

We join the action at this remixʼs second verse. The duoʼs Roc-A-Fella label is imploding in as painful a manner as any

rap biz split since Suge Knightʼs partnership with Dr. Dre and Interscope Records went to pieces. Remix producer Kanye West clips the second verse — from the original “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” single — down to a sort of lyrical set-up

for his industry sponsor, Jay Z. The then-president of his once-independent label grunts between each Kanye line.

Next, the mixtape graduate, mogul-in-waiting asks, rhetorically, if heʼll give up the symbol of gleaming ghetto enterprise that is the Roc-A-Fella chain.

Kanye West:

People keep asking me “Is Iʼm gonʼ give my chain back?”Thatʼs be the same day I give the game back

You know the next question, dog—Yo where Dame at?”

This track the Indian dance that bring our reign backWhatʼs up with you and Jay, man?

Are yʼall okay, man?

Jay:

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 14

21 Clover Hope, “Kanye West Has a Dream: Inside His Creative Agency DONDA,” Vibe online, August 19, 2013), http://www.vibe.com/article/kanye-west-has-dream-inside-creative-agency-donda.

Yep — I got it from here ʻYe, damn!

The chain remains, the gang is intactThe name is mine

Iʼll take blame for thatThe pressureʼs on, but guess who ainʼt gonna crack?

Pardon me, I had to laugh at thatHow could you falter when youʼre the Roc of Gibraltar?

I had to get off the boat so I could walk on waterThis ainʼt no tall order, this is nothing to me

Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a weekI do this in my sleep, I sold kilos of coke

Iʼm guessinʼ I can sell CDsIʼm not a businessman ‚ Iʼm a business, man

Let me handle my business, damn

Iʼll repeat that: “Iʼm not a businessman / Iʼm a businessman.”

Now, for the handful of you that arenʼt knowing? Iʼma let you know: This homophone koan gets repeated on the daily — again and again — in corporate board room and indie-minded start-up alike. Not only does Sean Carterʼs aphorism carry

a whiff of timelessness — or at least bound to last as long as capitalism lasts — it simultaneously works as a high water mark in hip-hop live reporting.22 Jay-Z narrates his gangsta corporate battle while fighting it. In as close to real-time as

possible — as a sonic addendum to his protegeʼs latest hit. So deep in the mix of old-school New York hip-hop is Jay that his verse lends subtext to Kanyeʼs foundational African war metaphor. Twitter was not yet a thing when that song started

showing up on mixtapes. For that reason, its genius remains somewhat underrated — “business, man” excluded.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 1522 Paul Cantor, “Jay and Camʼron: A History of Beef,” MTV Rap Fix, September 18, 2010, http://rapfix.mtv.com/2010/09/18/jay-z-camron-beef-runaway-remix/

Warning: I basically reference that remix to assuage the East Coast crowd familiar. What most interests me is the rap industry that grew out of the New York mixtape scene — pre-Jay & Kanye — and subsequently transformed and infused

culture small and large, local and international with its essential no-holds-barred quality.23

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 1623 Ryan Blair, “Going from Businessman to Brand, Jay-Z Style,” Forbes.com, August 9, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanblair/2012/08/09/going-from-businessman-to-brand-jay-z-style/

“That was the key to this whole hip-hop culture, was [this] obscure collection of

records, that were considered flops by the norm. But behind the scenes or in the

streets outside of the club scenes they were hit songs.” — DXT

Distilling street energy at a profit — in a made-up-as-it goes-process not unlike early production and distribution of rock

cocaine— has only ever been the business of hip-hop in the off-the-books realm. In the early eighties, when the rap industry was in infancy, Harlem DJ Brucie B would lead the movement of fully realized, impeccably curated and time-

sensitive playlists, working in song — not just rap fragments. He might play an R&B jam back to back, because he might just do that at a party. By 1990, Kid Capri had taken cassettes to another level, fully monetizing the game and becoming a

national star without having an identifying single or “legitimate” long-form release. Gangsters would pay as much as $300 to be close to the vibe set off by Kid Capriʼs concoction.

It cannot be stated enough: DJs had been front and center at the start of hip-hop, with DJ Breakout from the Funky Four

+1 foregrounded in the groupʼs 1981 Saturday Night Live appearance — the first rapping ever on national TV with a female rapper right in the middle, as hard as that might be to believe.24 Some of the 1980s most important records — from

Will Smithʼs first joint to Eric B & Rakimʼs Paid in Full — had the guy behind the turntable sharing equal brand billing. But

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 17

24 “DEBORAH HARRY, CHRIS STEIN, & THE FUNKY FOUR PLUS-ONE-MORE On SNL, Valentine's Day 1981,” Vimeo video, 13:34, from a performance televised by NBC on February 14, 1981, posted by “VD Party Films,” July 2014, http://vimeo.com/99640091.

by the end of the first Reagan administration the guy with the mic was the star. Record labels didnʼt want to pay them.25

Digital Audio Tape machines deeply encroached on the power of hip-hopʼs DJs.26

Though in the shadows, tapes remained influential — even as the compact disc was introduced. Hank Shocklee, one of the architects of Public Enemyʼs rolling, revolutionary sound, said last month:,

“Iʼve always made albums as mixtapes, starting with It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. Everything should just

meld into each other, you canʼt let anything die down. Once youʼve got listeners engaged, you want to keep them there.”

Through the era of Ronald Reagan, rap music grew from novelty status to Hammerʼs Diamond reign. Although MC market share increased, not all components of hip-hop culture gained equal stature.27 If you guessed that b-boying and graf

writing made a lot of green during this time, youʼve been paying no attention to the United Statesʼ dance and visual arts funding trends. The obvious commodity, based on American popʼs rock star/pugilist paradigm was the MC.

At Hammer Time, DJs were in the mix, but different from before.

There came to be an above-board rap music industry, and then its grimier cousin — the kid with radio connections, sticky

fingers and, voila! —the new fly shit. Fans all over the planet would begin spending money on mixtapes. More importantly, an mixtape ethos underpinned the leading edge of rap commerce, particularly through Public Enemyʼs late-ʻ80s run as

hip-hopʼs most broadly influential act. There would be no turning back from the diminished visibility of DJs, but they would always be the part of hip-hop culture closest to the music. And what was about to be called “the rap game” could not yet

touch this.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 18

25 See Scratch, directed by Doug Pray (2001; Palm Pictures), DVD.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 19

Dr. Dre, The Chronic (Death Row, 1992)

At the start of the G-Funk Era, a plurality of American rap fans were still popping cassettes into tape decks and dialing up

the Box to see their favorite videos.28 New York City wasnʼt yet hip to the fact, but its days as the center of hip-hop were numbered.29 The Oakland MC Too $hort gave me a single answer in, I think, 1993 to my questioning why the West Coast

was ascending to rap radio primacy:

Cars.30

New York rap, $hort Dog explained, had become geared to Walkman play, because head phones in the street was disproportionately an East Coast thing. Hip-hop artists back there made busier tracks and less bass and more lyrical

density because their bustling lifestyles accommodated them.31 Meanwhile the rap tapes and CDs that Bay Area and LA MCs and producers were putting out really did bang better in autos. Blasting rap in the driveway or in traffic or even on on

the Interstate was to become the American way listening to hip hop. Toss into the mix old-fashioned Hollywood violence and youʼve had the recipe for West Coast ascension.32

Too $hort, who popularized the adage “get in where you fit in,” soon took his car-conscious productions to Atlanta and

helped grow the southern rap game. (And by “grow the southern rap game” I mean take it into the strip club so that DJs and high-rollinʼ street hustlers might create a lewd new dialogue, one that would race up and down I-95 and get the songs

forever filthy.)33 Thereʼs no small number of West Coast hip-hop artists who helped expand on New Yorkʼs auspicious start

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 20

28 “The Box (90ʼs Promo),” YouTube video, 2:25, from a 90ʼs ad televised in the UK on Box Music Television, posted by “jay2567,” June 18, 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCf4203RnLM.

29 2Pac. “California Love.” Music video. Directed by Hype Williams. Los Angeles, CA: Death Row/ Santa Monica, CA: Interscope Records, Inc., 1995. DualDisc/DVD, 6:25 min.

30 Too $hort (American rapper, producer, and actor), in discussion with the author, 1993.

31 Public Enemy. “Welcome to the Terrordome,” on Fear of a Black Planet. Def Jam Recordings, 1991, compact disc. Recorded June-October 1989.

32 Keith Murphy, “Oral History: Tupac, Fist Fights, and the Making of ʻJuice,ʼ” Myspace.com, July 16, 2014, https://myspace.com/article/2014/01/13/oral-history-juice-tupac

33 Sean “SameOldShawn” Setaro and Cipha Sounds , “OTL: Episode 44,” Outside the Lines With Rap Genius, posted on RapGenius.com, http://genius.com/search?q=cypha+sounds&song%5Blyrics_updated_at%5D=0&song%5Bupdated_by_human_at%5D=1372260967. Accessed October 20, 2014; Regina Bradley, “The (Magic) Upper Room: Sonic Pleasure Politics in Southern Hip Hop,” Sound Studies Blog, June 16, 2014, http://soundstudiesblog.com/2014/06/16/the-magic-upper-room-sonic-pleasure-politics-in-southern-hip-hop/.

— Houstonʼs DJ Screw is among the criminally underrated — but no one looms larger than Andre Young. For years, Dr.

Dre could be summed up as an engineer who knew could fake it a bit on piano and the mic— the glue of every act he was in.34 But that was more than a decade before the Carlyle Group came calling with its $5 million in headphone

investment.35 He deejayed at Eveʼs After Dark in South Central L.A. before he got into a group and, even then taped mixes — complex proto-albums that made it to local radio and sold at the Roadium Swap Meet.36

One day a Compton street hustler named Eric “Eazy-E” Wright picked up a tape and told the stall owner to put Dre in

touch. Within months N.W.A — Niggaz wit Attitude, to be completist — was born.37 Long story short, working with Eazy led to a rash of black radio hits, Dreʼs near-bankruptcy, stellar-yet-minimalist solo career, arguably Eric Wrightʼs death from

AIDS, the most notorious music label war in American popʼs history, Eminemʼs game-changing media platform and— possibly most remarkable of all — the family film career of Ice Cube.38

Andre Young two-decade elevation from mixtape DJ to mogul was rarely as fun as it looked. Nevertheless, The Chronic

sold eight million copies and came to influence radio and MTV like pop.39 Corporate hip-hop became largely leaden and narrow as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 concentrated radio.40 Dre might have made a billion off this new set of

rules and players, but hip-hopʼs scope and texture and — most importantly — the unpredictability that Grandmaster DXT spoke of earlier, died.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 21

34 Donnell Alexander, Rollinʼ with Dre (New York: Random House, 2008).

35 Serena Ng, “Carlyle to Invest $500 Million in Dr. Dre's Beats Electronics As HTC Exits from Headphone Maker, Private-Equity Firm Finds Its Groove,” The Wall Street Journal online, September 17, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304526204579100711774280296.

36 Ronin Ro, Dr. Dre: The Biography (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2007), 29.

37 Ibid.

38 Ronin Ro, Dr. Dre: The Biography (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2007).

39 Donnell Alexander, Rollinʼ with Dre (New York: Random House, 2008).

40 Erik Arnold, “The Effects of Media Consolidation on Urban Radio,” Future of Music Coalition (blog), May, 16, 2008, https://futureofmusic.org/article/article/effects-media-consolidation-urban-radio.

Interesting note about the Doctor stepping out on his own: Dre was not a not a pot connoisseur. Mostly, he liked it with a

girl, late at night before the lights went out. Regardless, he used West Coast weed slang for his debut albumʼs title. The musicians creating the original content that would become that album were stunned to hear Dre pushing weed like that.

He was, after all, the same cat whoʼd made them leave the studio to get high. But Andre Young wanted to send a chill out to riot-torn LA. And he offered up The Chronic.41

The effects of dosing us has been wide-ranging, and not just in terms of cannabis usage.42 Weed came to dominate

studio time, and that changed the culture, from its volume of overt pot cues to the spike in freestyled — not written — rhyme flows.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 22

41 Chris Claremont ( session guitarist ), in discussion with author, 2008.

42 Meng-Jinn Chen, Brenda A. Miller, Joel W. Grube, Elizabeth D. Waiters. “Music, Substance Use, and Aggression.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, vol. 67, no. 3 (May 2006): http://www.jsad.com/jsad/article/Music_Substance_Use_and_Aggression/1485.html

“The way hip-hop collapsed art,

commerce and interactive

technology into one mutant animal

from its inception seems to have

almost predicted the forms culture

would have to take to prosper in the

digital age.”

—Greg Tate, Everything But the Burden

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 23

The act of converting turntables into musical instruments and then avenues of revenue materialized when schools in the

South Bronx were losing their funding for saxes and drum kits and people who taught them.43 Powering turntables through the services the city would deign to supply. The ignition of mixtape culture brought value and power where none had been

previously. Tate speaks to these late-20th century creations.

DJ Afrika Bambaataa had the critical connections.44 Kool Herc — the Jamaican deejay with more equipment than any mobile DJ in the borough had ever seen in one outdoor spot — was the one who figured out that not enough South Bronx

people would dance to music from his native land — not enough to turn the party out.45 So, DJ Kool Herc began letting the beats in his diverse record collection play longer and longer — back and forth between his two turntables.46 A seamless

mix of beats and the occasional MC rhyme. Next, Grandmaster Flash grasped the potential range of the turntableʼs sonic possibilities. And the mixtape game was on. Innovation that lived off the stylized curation and play that is deejaying quickly

moved to the land of street hustling.47 Before there was the actual organized single called “Rapperʼs Delight” or a “Christmas Rappinʼ” by Kurtis Blow, there were the “party tapes” and customized joints. Grandmaster Flash charged a

dollar per minute for his through the pre-rap industry era.48 Beyond the market of new buyers of these live boombox recordings, people who hadnʼt heard the tape or attended the party, were those who had simply worn out their tapes.

Not planned obsolescence, but close. Again, the time that groups like the Cold Crush brothers were platinum in the

streets, mixtape campaigns — as cheap to fund as TDK tapes at the corner store — had taken on another revenue

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 24

43 Johan Kugelberg, ed., Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop (New York: Rizzoli, 2007), 31.

44 Johan Kugelberg, ed., Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop (New York: Rizzoli, 2007), 16.

45 DJ Kool Herc. “DJ Kool Herc and the Birth of the Breakbeat.” By Terri Gross, National Public Radio, podcast audio, August 29, 2005, http://www.npr.org/2005/08/29/4821646/dj-kool-herc-and-the-birth-of-the-breakbeat.

46 Ibid.

47 Shaheem Reid, “Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry,” MTV.com, http://www.mtv.com/bands/m/mixtape/news_feature_021003/index.jhtml. Accessed April 7, 2014.

48 Ibid.

stream: Gamblers, Pimps, drug dealers and all sorts of wannabes in search of a bigger name paid hundreds for a

mention. Damon Dash says he paid once paid $20 to be shouted out.

But there was another, more foretelling byproduct. One less tangible than cash. The MC Raheim of both the Funky Four Plus One and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, tells about how he was terrorized by older teens — members of

the notorious Black Spades gang — as a 13 year old. And then his first Uptown party tapes began to circulate. One day A bunch of Black Spades showed up at his apartment. One had a boombox “and they were blasting a tape of me. But they

didnʼt know it was me.” Raheim began saying the rhyme along with the tape, to the gang membersʼ disbelief. They threatened to beat him unless he showed and proved.

“If you donʼt say some more Raheim shit right now, we gonna kick yoʼ ass.” Raheim recalls being told. Soon after reciting

his verse, Raheim took on the gang as his security. “They gave me their guns to sneak in our parties,” the pioneer said.49

How can one put a price tag on security? Considering their undeniable face value and hip-hopʼs growing voice, how could these microphone fiends not take a further leap in cool from where they began?

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 25

49 Sean “SameOldShawn” Setaro and Raheim, “New Podcast — Rahiem of The Furious Five (#49),” Outside the Lines With Rap Genius, posted on RapGenius.com, http://rap.genius.com/Outside-the-lines-with-rap-genius-new-podcast-rahiem-of-the-furious-five-49-lyrics

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 26

Scratch, directed by Doug Pray (2001) on YouTube; https://www.youtube.com/watch?

The mid-1990s rise of Adornoʼs “culture industry” brought on a radical development in the world of mixtapes.50 Where

Puffy Combs led the charge of simplistic samplers to rap radio, a group of vinyl fans with big ideas changed how many of us think about the turntable. They did it on mixtape and in a performative, not presentational, mode.

The San Francisco-reared DJ Q-bert has been called “The Louis Armstrong” of turntablism.51 In the original turntable

“band” FM2.0 and all three volumes of Invizibl Skratch Picklz The Shiggar Friggar Show, the San Francisco DJ offered the turntable as the ultimate sonic deconstruction tool. Notes, not songs, were disturbed, juggled and rearranged — all on

time.To hear The Shiggar Friggar Show on a well-worn cassette is to hear infinity fade, funkily. Never even in the area code of matching the sales figures of the poorest performing Bad Boy or Death Row release, the turntablism revolution

introduced an platoon of song-deconstructing DJs: The X-Ecutioners, DJ Shadow, and the Oakland Faders — not to mention influencing fine artists, EDM acts, and traditional rap industry beatmakers. DJsʼ deejays remain a critical part of

the cultureʼs sonic development.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 27

50 Jason Tanz, Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007), 78.

51 See turntablism in Scratch, directed by Doug Pray (2001; Palm Pictures), DVD.

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50 Cent and G-Unit, 50 Cent Is the Future (Street DAnce, 2002)

And the future appeared grim. Straight away, I enjoy a few of his tracks, but donʼt care for the essence of 50 Centʼs music.

Regardless, thereʼs no denying his extraordinary role in the evolution of mixtapes. Fiddyʼs core audience had heard many of his middleman-free efforts before the Dr. Dre produced CD Get Rich or Die Trying came out, and the role of that early

listening in the official debutʼs success changed things as much as the transition from cassettes.52

In the last months and years before the 20th centuryʼs close, black kids who in the days before Bambaataa were playing baseball were now doing hip-hop for profit.53 So were the Latin stick-up kids and suburban white and Asians — all around

the world young people were mesmerized by the rhyme styles of Bamʼs progeny. The rap record industry had matured into a jobs program that cleaned up the streets — sometimes while on break from soiling them — and making producers

and magazine editors and promoters where before there were none.54 In Giuliani-era New York, there were new, professional direction to mixtapes, new angles of profitability. Tape Kingz made international distribution a veritable cinch.

Emmis Media representative Funkmaster Flex began putting out, through traditional labels, pedestrian, Gold-selling iterations of what popped in the streets.55 And the corporate labels themselves sent product promos out in mixtape form.

Itʼs understood that the Mayor gave less of a fuck about cultivating 50 Centʼs talent than Abe Beame cared about

Bambaataaʼs prospects. Only, the Queens-born 50 Cent was no peace-maker in the mode of Bambaataa. His single “How to Rob” — not an ode but a promise to stick up famous rappers —put him on the map (fittingly through a heavily-

bootlegged-but-unreleased major-label album).56 Fiddy — a charismatic, yet otherwise unremarkable rhymer — used unbeatable street street buzz to sweep himself into a meeting with Dr. Dre and Eminem.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 29

52 Shaheem Reid, “Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry,” MTV.com, http://www.mtv.com/bands/m/mixtape/news_feature_021003/index.jhtml. Accessed April 7, 2014.

53 Steven J. Horowitz, “The Economy of Mixtapes: How Drake, Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T. Figured It Out (Listen),” Billboard.com, September 20, 2011, http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1168371/the-economy-of-mixtapes-how-drake-wiz-khalifa-big-krit-figured-it-out

54 Derrick Parker and Matt Diehl, Notorious C.O.P.: The Inside Story of the Tupac, Biggie, and Jam Master Jay Investigations from NYPD's First "Hip-Hop Cop" ( London: St. Martinʼs Press, 2006), 276.

55 “Exclusive: Funkmaster Flex Talks Building Digital Platforms with Emmis,” YouTube video, 1:13, posted by “Hip-Hop Wired, April 22, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9tmo6g1tLUd.

56 50 Cent, “How to Rob,” single featuring The Madd Rapper, Columbia Records, 1999.

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Gangsta Boo & BeatKing, Underground Cassette Tape Music (2014)

Itʼs worth mentioning that Gangsta Boo and Beatking never actually met each other in the production of this mixtape,

which hit last month and has more than his share of moments. If this complicates your emotions, please know that what youʼre feeling is normal. Todayʼs iteration of the cultureʼs most touchstone medium — distributed primarily for free, its

promotional possibilities manipulated like the old-guard turntable technicians manipulated vinyl — is nothing if not complicated.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 31

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 32

Big T.C.

Corporations have had an unprecedented access to mixtapes for more than a decade.57 DJs are now known for facilitating the product , not cutting and scratching on them. The formally dazzling days when DJs like Brucie B treated the

cassette as a canvass for splashes of R&B and rap colors and interstellar turntablists like Q-Bert and the X-Ecutioners explored the inner malleability of historyʼs recorded music arenʼt coming back. Innovation, however is alive and well on the

mixtape scene. Itʼs just not holed up where old-school follower of hip-hop might think to look.

Sometimes the invention hides in plain sight. These are lyrics from from LA artist Ty Dolla Signʼs Sign Language, a late-summer jam thatʼs made the LA star, arguably, the planetʼs hottest R&B commodity.58

Iʼm in too deep, to my knee in this shit

Iʼm in too deep, said Iʼm deep in these streetsIʼm in too deep

The lyrics are crooned, with an profoundly soulful ache, by Ty Dolla Signʼs younger brother TC over a prison telephone

line. Then the vocals switch to a more conventional West Coast MC flow. “In Too Deep,” is both the final track on Sign Language and the lead-in to Ty Dolla Signʼs first official album, Free TC — due out this month. Never mind the confidence

necessary to bury whatʼs arguably oneʼs most powerful song at the tail of new product, no matter how underground. How about pinning the above-board-official release to that hidden treasure? A move like that doesnʼt blow your mind like a

Invizibl Skratch Picklz side, but through marketing the maneuver makes a larger, more tangible impact. If I have a favorite trend the realm, it would be that joints seem to be growing more experimental the longer they play on.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 33

57 Kelefa Sanneh, “Mixtapes Mix In the Marketing That Fuels the Hip-Hop Industry,” The New York Times online, July 20, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/arts/music/20sann.html?_r=0.

58 Rose Lilah, “Ty Dolla $ign - Sign Language,” HotNewHipHop.com, August 25, 2014, http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/ty-dolla-sign-sign-language-new-mixtape.115454.html?song-1956454.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 34

Nipsey Hussle, Crenshaw (2013)

Nipsey Hussleʼs 2013 Crenshaw mixtape is as compelling in its last third as at its start. But the story behind its music is

far more significant.

The entrepreneurial MC had been given a Sony recording contract in 2008, just as the bottom of the music industry proved to be false. Instead for dropping into obscurity when his deal went away, Nipsey managed his expectations, kept

putting out music, and expanded his brand. He grew his social media following to more than half a million die-hard followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while releasing one quality mixtape after another. Collectively, these deeds

led to features on other artistsʼ tracks, international touring, and revenue. He opened a clothing store near a location where as a teen heʼd had shootouts. The old label, with its unrequested input and demands to that he recoup, could not

have seemed less relevant. He had to oversee all aspects of his career — and that turned out to be as magnetizing as a mic.

On October 2, 2013, Nipsey, 28 at the time, placed two greatest hits collections on iTunes. The next day he announced

that his upcoming project would be a DJ Drama-hosted mixtape called Crenshaw, a mixtape hosted by DJ Drama.There would be a wrinkle that Nipsey Hussle called the Proud Pay Campaign.59 Through his South-Central Los Angeles clothing

shop, the performer would make 1,000 of his mixtapes available for $100 each. The idea jolted Black Twitter and points beyond. Jay Z bought the first 100 copies and Crenshaw reportedly sold out within 40 hours, clearing the Rollinʼ 60s Crips

member a reported $100,000.60

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 35

59 “Civil TV: Nipsey Hussle #Crenshaw Documentary,” YouTube video, 5:05, posted by “Karen Civil,” September 24, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGiEUruKl3s.

60 Rob Markman, “Jay Z Spent How Much On Nipsey Hussleʼs Crenshaw CD? Nipsey's $100 CD gets some heavyweight support from Hov,” MTV.com, October 9, 2013, http://www.mtv.com/news/1715301/jay-z-nipsey-hussle-crenshaw-100-cd/.

This was a very hip-hop move by the unsigned artist. Nipsey explained to me in September:

“Hip-hop developed out of the spirit of not having the means to produce. So, it definitely has a strong relationship to capitalism. The most influential culture in music — in the world — came from people who didnʼt have the means to

produce music. The spirit of that is that you create a way, you donʼt take “no” for an answer.

“[Hip-Hop] became entry-level upward mobility,” the business, man continues. “You couldnʼt get into business if you didnʼt go to college. You couldnʼt go work at a record label and be an executive if you didnʼt know people in the game or have a

level of nepotism or a paper from an established institution. But hip-hop is entry-level. You can come in, have something to say and, based on how hard you work and how smart you are, you can take it to heights that you wouldnʼt believe.”

To make this a wrap, letʼs take it back to the street hustler shout-out that monetized cassette product back in the day.

Nipsey Hussle reminded me that “street dudes donʼt do that anymore.” Yet they still love being immortalized on what we continue to call mixtapes. I think this happens because — despite changes in mixtape content and means of monetizing

and distributing — the cool in-the-moment function of these DJ-driven products is stronger than ever. When on a mixtape, or even just copping one, you are in the place to be.

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 36

Donnell Alexander, Capitalism and Hip-Hop: Mixtape Culture Cool 37

Acknowledgments: Tony Best, Elizabeth Ellen, Pamela Miller, Ian and Kayman Rees, Nicole

Eriko Amagai Smith, Walter and Karen Sweet