Side B
In the spirit of all things mixtape related I dug deep and pulled out one of my favourite mixtapes that I own. The DJ is 1st Klass, and it's a must download. Sadly I can only share an old rip I made from 2014, as the original tape has started to break down. They aren't forever - no media is. They are slowly rotting away.
Now...
There has been lots of talk recently about online sellers of mixtapes.
I'll state firstly that if there is a "truth" out there as to who is who, and the ethics of what they are doing, I don't know what it is. I'd also like to say that to date I've never sold a tape on ebay, nor do I plan to in the future - to date I've "made" under $40.00 through donations (an amount that wouldn't usually cover buying two mixtapes from ebay, let alone adding in shipping and so on, but an amount I am still very humbled to receive, despite whining about it in what is already a long sentence)
I'll try and keep it brief m8s -
Always be cautious when buying tapes online.
Accept that most of the mixtapes you can buy on ebay will have a questionable provenance (are you buying a copy of a download of a tape that was a copy of a copy of a copy of the master tape? lol)
Learn to look out for what a "legitimate" mixtape looks like. Sometimes shops will have made different covers for a mixtape. Maybe you are buying a tape kingz release of a tape that was also sold with a Harlem Music Hut cover. Whatever. Have a look at examples of covers posted on here, and the tapes themselves too. Does the tape you just bought look amazingly fresh, despite it being a Kool Out tape from 1993? Did you buy a Jazzy Joyce tape from from 1992 but on the cover she is clearly in her 40s?
Question everything about an auction. Realise that when you send someone a tape, and they promise not to post it online, that they might then trade it with someone else, and so on and so on.
Hip hop music isn't my culture. Mixtapes aren't my culture either. I was born in 1986 in London, and I've never set foot in America. I know next to nothing about mixtapes - I just started this website as I wanted to contribute for all the mixtapes I listened to that others had shared on the internet, that educated me on a music I found I had a real love for (people like tape masta, S.O.U.L, Chris French, illzdatapecollecta, Dj Step 1 from O.B.4.ZS.L, tape diggers, Dj Marioka, Brandan from Recognise the real and countless others I am doing a disservice to by not remembering off the top of my head.)
Hip-hop mixtapes as they were known are dead. The community of people who enjoy mixtapes like these is shrinking everyday. It relies almost entirely on content - we need to hear these mixtapes. We want to download them and keep them. If things are bad behind the scenes, then people will end up alienated and jaded. And that will prove counter productive to all of us who like mixtapes.
It is our right to scrutinise ebay sellers, but that only goes so far. It doesn't stop people selling things online. Speak out when you feel things are wrong, but think before you buy that item on ebay. Tell a friend to tell a friend about this website. Or just give them the link to http://www.f-yourmixtape.com/ (has everything beautifully organised and covers multiple sites)
