2009 was the year of mixtapes. Never before has hip hop seen so many outstanding mixtapes in both quantity and quality (lyrics, beat selection and production). You need to fully understand the evolution of mixtapes to fully comprehend what I mean. During the early days of mixtapes, they were just various songs by multiple artists, compiled to gain recognition for the DJ and to break new music. Nowadays, a mixtape is done by an artist to keep the fans’ fickle attention, to throw them freestyles, snippets of songs to come, and full length songs to both whet the fans musical appetites and to keep the name of the artist buzzing.
However, last year, mixtapes evolved further.
Artists were trying to do more than whet a fan’s appetite, they were attempting to fill up a stomach with quality music, more often than not succeeding. From Drake to J. Cole, to Wale to Lupe Fiasco, to Big Sean to Young Jeezy, to Nicki Minaj and even r&b singer Trey Songz, artists were putting out mixtapes that rivaled and surpassed the quality of actual albums that were released in 2009.
Case in point, Drake’s So Far Gone. The buzz around this mixtape was enormous before it dropped and when it finally did, Drake’s stock rose in the music world due to its quality. Never before had a mixtape been so thoroughly sequenced, put together and concise as his tape was. From beginning to end, from his lyrics to content to his choice of features to beats. Drake put together a solid tape that was better in all the aforementioned ways than the majority of albums put out in 2009. To show how great his project actually was, it was the 1st mixtape ever to be nominated for a Grammy. (insert a corny “Best I Ever Had” joke here..) However, to be fair, Drake wasnt the only one to put out an excellent mixtape in 09.
J. Cole’s The Warm Up is definitely in that category, and not only inserted his name into the collective of rap fans that didn’t know him before, but also sparked an endless debate of who was better – Drake, Wale or J. Cole, which was very reminiscent of and sparked as much debate as the Nas, Biggie or Hov question in the 90s. Nicki Minaj started her own revolution (or cult, depending on who you are asking) of Barbies and Kens with her Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape. She made a splash with that tape, and love her or dislike her, she seems to be poised to take the throne of women in hip hop. Lupe Fiasco put out Enemy of the State which made every current and aspiring rapper want to step up their game lyrically, and also introduced him to a new legion of fans. Lil Wayne, 50 Cent and Young Jeezy held onto their fans with their respective mixtapes, giving the fans the music they wanted to hear, and missed from these artists.
There were even 2 examples of artists mixtapes that were better than their own actual albums. Both Wale and Trey Songz put out acclaimed mixtapes with Back to the Feature and Ready respectively. However, while these mixtapes created huge buzz for both the artists and their projects to come later in the year, their albums didnt match up the hype they created with their tapes.. (This is not to say that there were not stand out tracks on both..) Wale’s Attention Deficit seemed like a watered down version of himself and his skills, while Trey Songz’ song selection failed to match the depth and the quality of the material on his mixtape. In both of these cases, it seemed that it would have been much better if the artists has put out their mixtapes as their albums, and skipped the actual album completely.
Indeed, there were too many mixtapes put out this year that deserve accolades. Pac Div’s Church League Champions, Big Sean’s UKNOWBIGSEAN, and Fashawn & Alchemist’s The Antidote all deserve praise and a spin if you haven’t already heard of them. There’s no doubt that the quality of mixtapes greatly surpassed those of actual albums last year, so here’s hoping that artists take note of that fact and step it up for 2010. Because really, what fun is it if hip-hop excels in mixtapes and loses with actual albums?
*Raises a glass* Here’s to 2010. Hopefully a new year and a decade of both quality mixtapes AND albums.
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