mixtaping

the art of making a mixtape

A normally shitty couple of songs given to you by your aspiring rapper friend who thinks he's gonna "make it" in the music industry. They claim it is "fire" but it's probably a bunch of garbage. The number of mixtapes circling the internet now has in fact gotten so large that the government has had to set up multiple fires around the country to burn their friends' shitty mixtapes.

A mix featuring songs that have been carefully choosen, mixed and recorded onto an analog or digital medium. The name Mixtape is used because they were originally mixed and recorded onto cassette tapes by DJs in the 70's 80's and 90's. DJs later recorded mixtapes onto CD which gave them their second name Mix-CDs.Mixtape still prevails over the term Mix-CD as the main word used to describe DJ mixes of this nature.

Unfortunately in the late 1990's the term mixtape became associated erroneously with many artist compilations, which featured little or no actual dj mixing. As a mixtape aficionado, I prefer mixtapes to actually be mixed. DJ Mixed Mixtapes are the only real mixtapes out there, everything else should be called a compilation.

Romantics call compilations they put together for Loved ones Mixtapes because it is more romantic than Compilation Albums. Usually when giving "Ballad Mixtapes" to loved ones, there is a thought process on the selection of songs and the arrangement of the playlist. Many people, even "so called DJs" claim to make mixtapes but don't put any real thought into the creation process. They slap a bunch of popular songs together with no thought of the order or flow of the songs. That is definitely not a mixtape. Lets face it, If I wanted a bunch of songs played randomly without purpose, I would just hit shuffle on my I-Pod.

To make it simple Mixtapes should be mixed, everything else in reality is just a compilation.

underground cd's, etc. than usually contain freestyles/remixes/instrumentals or real songs before they hit mainstream (minus the dj yelling)

A homemade music compilation (usually on cassette or CD-R) that contains all your favourite tracks. Often you give such a compilation to the guy or gal of your fancy in hopes that it will help you win their heart.

An "underground" CD that has instrumentals already used by some artists, so the MC in the mixtape raps over these beats to show that they can rap better than the original artists. In these mixtapes there´s also annoying DJs yelling all over the tracks. It´s excellent for upcoming MCs that need to be heard, and for mainstream artists to "keep it gangsta".

A CD or other media containing songs remixed authorized or unauthorized by djs who resell them on the street.