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- ♪ MTV ♪
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[tape rewinding]
[percussive hip-hop beat]
[smooth hip-hop beat]
[bassy hip-hop beat]
[heavy hip-hop beat]
- Of course it begins shaky.
Here you have a DJ basically selling your record.
[laughs]
There's clearly an FBI warning on every label.
[laughs] It is what it is.
[chill music]
- A mixtape was everything.
- It was like sneakers. You went on the hunt for 'em.
- Whatever the relevance of social media is,
that's what a mixtape was at that time.
- You could never disrespect a mixtape.
- We were the tastemakers, man.
- I freestyled on one of his tapes.
When I was walking out,
Tupac was walking out, Biggie was coming in.
- Biggie was excited about the Best of Biggie Mixtape.
He's like, "yo, I'm hearing the mixtape
more than my album."
- That was our whole outlet.
We was platinum on mixtapes.
- So I would take people's commercial hits,
keep some of the melodies,
but aim it straight at the neighborhoods.
- Instead of playing albums, they were blasting mixtapes.
- When "Tha Carter III" sold a million the first week,
we weren't surprised necessarily
because of the mixtapes.
- A mixtape is a personal playlist from a DJ
who feels this is the way the sequence should be.
This is the story I'm trying to tell.
These are the artists that I feel are the ones
that are creating the vibe.
And here it is from my perspective.
That's a mixtape.
- Well, the beginning starts off, in my memory,
with a gold Maxell cassette.
- Brothers and sisters,
I don't know what this world is coming to!
[Public Enemy's "Rebel Without a Pause"]
- ♪ Yes, the rhythm, the rebel ♪
♪ Without a pause, I'm lowering my level ♪
♪ The hard rhymer, where you never been, I'm in ♪
♪ You want stylin'? You know it's time again ♪
♪ D, the enemy, tellin' you to hear it ♪
♪ They praised the music ♪
♪ This time they play the lyrics ♪
♪ Some say no to the album, The Show ♪
♪ Bum Rush, the sound, I made a year ago ♪
♪ I guess you know, you guess I'm just a radical ♪
♪ Not on sabbatical, yes, to make it critical ♪
♪ The only party your body should be partyin' to ♪
♪ Panther power on the hour from the rebel to you ♪
- Ay, yo, Chuck, man. I don't understand this, man!
Yo, you got to slow down, man, you losin' them!
- ♪ Radio, suckers never play me ♪
♪ On the mix, they just okay me ♪
♪ Now, known and grown ♪
♪ When they're clocking my zone, it's known ♪
♪ Snaking and taking ♪
♪ Everything that a brother owns ♪
- ♪ Hard ♪ - ♪ My calling card ♪
♪ Recorded and ordered, supporter of Chesimard ♪
♪ Loud and proud, kicking live next, poet supreme ♪
♪ Loop a troop, bazooka, the scheme ♪
- ♪ Flavor ♪
- ♪ A rebel in his own mind, supporter of my rhyme ♪
♪ Designed to scatter a line of suckers ♪
♪ Who claim I do crime ♪
♪ They on my time ticket ♪
[bell tolls]
- Uh. Uh, uh, uh.
- [rapping indistinctly]
- Uh, yeah.
We're lowey and we're good to go-ey.
- Tony Touch.
- We couldn't upload hip-hop.
We couldn't download hip-hop.
We couldn't burn hip-hop to a CD.
We physically had to be there.
You had to be there.
And the only other way
that you could walk away from hip-hop
and still hear it is if you had a tape.
- Is New York in the house?
Say it now. - Yes.
[hip-hop music]
- Think of New York as just--
- If you're talking about the '80s--
- I'ma be very honest with you, man.
- Yeah, New York was funky back then.
[laughs] I know. I can say it firsthand.
- It was the-- it was a lot of hustling,
you know, the drug era.
- I got mugged almost double digits as a kid.
- I would go into the bus, or the train station,
I would snatch the jewelry, run off the bus.
I'm just that kind of grimy nigga.
I'm in New York, Brooklyn, grimy Brownsville nigga.
- People wanting to hustle and get money,
and trying to live fast and survive.
- Regular project shit.
[hip-hop music]
- So, you know, I saw a lot of the hustlers
making their money. - It was mostly drug money.
- For me, growing up not knowing what you wanna do,
you see influences, right?
- I was offered to be in the street
and do certain things
that could have probably got me very rich very quick,
or very dead very quick.
- Well, you get a little money
and now you on the block or you on the corner.
- I chose that while they gon' sell $20 cracks,
I'ma sell $20 tapes.
I'ma get what they got, just a little slower.
- We were hustling for two different causes.
Some would be for the origin of what hip-hop is,
and you being a DJ,
and then the origin of being a hustler.
So we combined the two.
- This is a reel of recording tape.
For years, people have been threading it,
spilling it, tangling with it, and sometimes breaking it.
- Cassettes were a result of
kind of this constant technological quest
to make things smaller and more powerful.
- The cassette made it so that you could record it
and then you could move around with it.
- When I was a kid, I thought they looked like LEGOs.
[laughter]
- You could take it into your car.
You could listen to it on your Walkman.
- Not just share music, but decide what music
they wanna be shared and in what way.
- That was our Spotify.
That was our place that we'd go.
- Like, look. You're not in the streets hanging out,
but this is what we was doing last night.
- That was their Instagram page.
That was their Twitter.
- That was the Hot 97 of the streets, man, the tapes.
- The first time I heard a mixtape
it wasn't called a mixtape. It was--
- Loads of live recording.
- They were tapes of jams in the park.
They were tapes of club performances.
- You got all these groups that aren't really recording,
they're just performing.
Their live shows are being documented on cassette.
And those cassettes are circulating.
- Some of the first hip-hop I experienced
was listening to these party tapes.
[smooth music]
- Who's that girl?
- We knew the exact feet to stand away
from that blasting speaker
to catch the DJ and the emcee that was rocking
where it wouldn't be staticky.
- If I had the newest Cold Crush Brothers tape,
I could be 15 and sit with a conversation
with people 20 years old.
Because you had to dub it from me.
You had to ask me where I got it.
And that warranted us to have conversation.
- ♪ We battle fantastic ♪
♪ And here's a little gift ♪
♪ To let you know, before you go ♪
♪ Just who you're fucking with ♪
- The recording was so low-fi you felt like you were there.
You could hear needle scratches.
You could hear people in the background.
- You have to imagine what this was in your own mind.
Imagine the environment.
- "Yo, yo, Murph, go get me a drink."
This is on the tape. - You imagine yourself there.
- The cassette is actually making you more intelligent
about what you're doing, 'cause you can't see it.
- And you wanna go there.
- So you have to create in your own mind the scenario,
the situation, just like reading a book.
- "Back up off the ropes. Back up off the ropes."
And they'd be like-- ♪ Mary, Mary ♪
♪ Where are you going to ♪
On.
- ♪ Party people, gon' get funky ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
[hip-hop music]
- Then I'd be like--I just be feeling like I'm in there, man.
♪ ♪
- Cold Crush, Fantastic 5, Force MDs...
- Grandmaster Vic, block parties...
- Zulu Nation, Afrika Islam, Afrika Bambaataa,
Red Alert, Jazzy J...
- Bizzy Bee, Kool Moe Dee battle.
- Mr. T-Bone, Teddy Ted, Lil Black,
Cisco Kid, and Eazy AD. - Mm.
- So that was before--
before Grandmaster Caz, JDL... - Wow.
- And KG got into Cold Crush Brothers.
- What year is this? - That was '77.
- And what mixtape, like a party tape?
- No. I was just a party tape.
You know, the crazy thing is that DJs didn't even
make their own mixtapes.
It was somebody just literally bootlegging the event.
[hip-hop music]
- The music was-- was bursting at the seams,
couldn't be contained.
There had to be people who were selectors.
You had club DJs.
You waited all week for that Thursday night,
Friday night, Saturday night, whatever it was,
to hear the best music,
and to be exposed to music you did not know of.
- Just hearing it live--
just hearing the emcee on the mic live,
and the DJ bringing the record back and forth--
and you could hear the crowd in the background.
Oh, man, I was mesmerized.
I wanna be a part of this.
[record scratching]
- What we'd do hours in a-- at a time,
in our living room or in a bedroom.
12 hours, doing the same thing.
That's how we got to where we are today.
Here we go, baby. Here we go.
Showtime, damn it.
[LL Cool J's "Rock The Bells"]
Showtime.
- ♪ LL Cool J is hard as hell ♪
♪ I'll battle anybody, I don't care who you tell ♪
[record scratching]
- Like, I always used to want-- like, make whatever artist
have a stuttering problem. - [chuckles]
♪ ♪
- Woo!
Woo!
Yes.
Oh, Where's that at?
- After the live party scene,
everyone is making their own cassettes.
My grandmother used to have Maxell cassette tapes.
She used to go and she used to have a--
a tape recorder, like, a flat, square joint
that she'd go to church with.
She would record the services.
And I would take the toilet paper
and put it inside the little hole, tape over it.
- Now everyone taping the radio.
- We are out of time.
That's it for our show this week.
Our associate producer is Bob Pickett.
I'm Bob Slade. Keep a good thought.
- There used to be this guy named Bob Slade
who used to do, like, this just public service announcement
before the rap show.
It was just a cappella with a whole lot of reverb.
You could hear each of the cars putting it on before 9:00,
because they--they didn't--
you didn't wanna miss the first shit.
- 'Cause hip-hop was playing on the radio for, like, one hour.
- So you would hear his voice.
- Like, you had to have that hour.
- And it became synonymous with hip-hop.
- It's time for ♪ DJ Red Alert ♪
- Radio used to be very uncool.
Grandmaster Flash was offered a radio show
when it was called XLO, before it was Kiss FM,
and he turned it down.
Bambaataa quit.
He was there for a couple weeks.
Jazzy J quit.
He was there for a couple weeks.
But Red Alert stayed.
- You may hear me play, like, you know, some R&B,
like a Kashif or Lillo Thomas, just to name a few.
And then I put in, along with it,
some "Rock It" by Herbie Hancock,
and some Run DMC, some Whodini.
- He was the beginning, the first uptown on the radio.
Radio only was on in New York from 9:00 PM to 12:00 midnight.
But don't get it fucked up.
I can't explain to you what it was like
to hear, like, Chuck D or Flavor Flav on a drop saying--
- Yeah, boy!
- See ya! - See ya!
- Rock the jam, y'all!
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- There was a club called Harlem World.
Brucie and Starchild used to DJ up there.
The hustlers, the drug dealers,
that was coming there was hearing these tapes.
"Now, how much for that tape?
I'll pay you $100 right now, because that's the only tape."
- "I got a personalized so-and-so mixtape."
- You got to remember, we would have killers, and drug dealers,
all kind of crazy motherfuckers in there.
Like, Alpo used to buy tape from me for $500.
"Yo, give me that tape." Nah, I can't do it, Po.
"I'll give you 100." Nah.
"Give you $300." Nah. "I'll give you $500."
Here, take the fucking tape, Po.
[laughs] Take that, right?
- Or they'll go ahead and say, "yo, can you make a tape for me
shouting my name out?"
- We would make the tape right there,
and they would come in, we'd shout them on the tape
right there when they came in.
- March 17th, Rooftop.
- Yo, shout out this Alpo and Rich Porter at The Rooftop.
- And I used to have, like, cheese lines.
Like, 'cause everybody knew I had an operation.
I would do Friday,
but I wouldn't sell you Friday's tape
because, you know, Friday was for next week.
I'm selling you last week's tape.
- The exciting tape emerged from Brucie B.
He became the standard.
- They'll tell you beachside, the little line.
They thought I was selling coke and cracks in my booth,
but it was just tapes, you know?
- [laughs] - Yeah.
- He'll have five tape decks, and he'll copy the tapes.
Then he'll take the four tapes that he made,
sell those tapes,
take the fifth tape and copy that one,
and start the next one and sell it for $20.
He said, "Okay, we'll get together.
I take ten, you take ten."
We were cleaning they ass up.
Yo, we were cleaning they ass up.
- If you really wanna be honest--
- That's what it really was.
It was the soundtrack to the drug dealers.
- To record an instrumental track for dudes to rap over,
you needed a band and a studio.
And, you know, all that was, you know, really expensive.
Taking any turntable and recording
a break into a tape--
you know, you pressed record and paused.
The tape was paused.
The break is coming.
- [vocalizing]
- Go to the break part.
- You release the pause right on the one.
- Play your song again. [vocalizing]
- Stop it right on beat, roll back, do it again.
- And you had to go play whatever your source was
ten times onto the cassette,
use the pause button as the joint between each loop.
So now you get 16 bars out.
Young kids were doing this in the hood
to get a bed of music that they liked from a certain record.
[knock on door] - Yo, yo.
- What up, Tone? Come down, man.
- Oh, yo. - Hang out, man.
- What's happening?
Yo, man. - Little messy in here.
- Oh, man. This is fly, B.
- The biggest impact of all time
for this whole mixtape phenomenon,
it goes straight to Kid Capri.
- Kid Capri lit up the room the moment he walked in it.
- This Kid Capri's a living legend.
- There was great DJs,
Jam Master Jay, all these dudes,
and they were superstars.
But they were superstars behind a group.
I wanted to be the dude. I wanted to be the mic.
I wanted to be everything.
- What Brucie B created,
he put it on steroids.
- I used to just make these little tapes for myself.
When you heard 'em, you know, you felt like you was there.
- He was able to sort of capture an experience.
- It could be in my hallway
and sound like it was a live show.
- It wasn't, like, just someone kind of at home.
Like, he brought the energy that
he would give you in a club.
- His voice felt like it was cutting the paint off the wall.
- Check one, two!
Now I got police cars driving by playing my shit.
I got Mister Softee pulling up playing my shit
when he's supposed to be playing--
[vocalizes ice cream jingle]
Once I seen what it did and what the possibilities was,
then the business head came.
- For some reason,
in front of the Apollo Theater was this dude...
[laughs] selling the crazy shit.
- He don't remember this. I tell him this all the time.
He chased my truck three blocks down 3rd Avenue
trying to give me a free mixtape before he blew.
"Play this. Play this."
And we put it in.
♪ Something tell you that I wouldn't do ♪
♪ 'Cause you love me, baby ♪
"It's the world famous Kid Capri!"
And we-- [screaming]
Like, you know what I'm saying? So--
- 145th Street in Harlem was the main spot
where all the ballers, all the players would go,
all the chicks would go.
After the clubs let out,
everybody would go there to Willie's Burgers.
I would sit there in awe just watching the cars go by--
the BMWs and the Mercedes, and the Jettas kitted up
with Kid Capri, those voices, coming out of those cars.
- My purpose was to get known
and also make a little bit of money while I was doing it.
[hip-hop music]
- Kid Capri, 52 Beats,
that's the all-time greatest mixtape, to me, to this day.
- ♪ Something in the way you make me feel ♪
- It's the Kid Capri. By all means, jump inside.
Go down.
- He had a mix of "Impeach the President"
and this song called
"Something in the Way You Make me Feel."
You could stop at a stoplight in Harlem, one block,
you could stop the next block,
and you could stop five blocks up.
There'd be a car at every light playing that mix
in a different spot.
That's like a radio station.
- Like, I'm nowhere. I have no group.
I'm not on the radio, nothing.
But I could go get a cassette, play some hot shit.
If my mix is something you bump in your ride,
I'm somebody.
- Me doing the Stephanie Mills mix
with the break beat to "Impeach the President,"
I didn't know that I was changing
the whole '90s hip-hop era of music.
You now had to sing on the break beat.
- After we get the initial shock of Capri,
the mixtape market, with Doo Wop, S&S...
[bell tolls]
We explode.
[explosion]
- Kid Capri. - Brucie B.
- Kid Capri. - Triple C.
- Hard Candy. - Ron G.
- Mr. C. - Doo Wop.
- S&S. - Ron G.
Remember DJ Ron G was off the fucking hook, right?
- Don't even start calling names.
- DJ Screw. - Recipes. DJ Screw.
- DJ Jazzy Jeff.
- Tony Touch. - G-Bo the Pro, Double R.
- Tony Touch. - Clark Kent.
- Jazzy Joyce. - Craig G.
- Funk Master Flex.
- Tony Touch. Doo Wop.
- Wherever you got it from-- the barber shop,
the corner store, the blanket on the street--
you was gonna get your fix.
- I'm getting the idea that, like, if I don't buy this tape,
I cannot hear this anywhere else.
- It was an invisible market.
That market was not measured by any analytics companies.
You have to have your ear to the street.
- We was the product. - We're the product.
- They was the dealers. - Yeah.
[tape rewinding]
- Get the--
[tape rewinding]
- Yo, yo, Redman.
- Yo, yo, Toneman. What the fuck, toca?
Get the fuck off that punk smooth shit.
Get with that rough shit. You know how we do.
- ♪ Yeah, it's the love and hate theory ♪
♪ Tax free, can't Google what I make yearly ♪
♪ When you mix pain with rage, you get fairy ♪
♪ I don't hear the talent, I just see the fake jury ♪
♪ Please don't compare me ♪
♪ Whoever you thinking about going to get ♪
♪ They can't fuck with me, clearly ♪
♪ The minute that I lace up my boots, it's kind of scary ♪
♪ These bars came from the Roots, Alex Haley ♪
♪ You got hate in your blood, and you kept hating ♪
♪ Me? I just caked up and I kept taking ♪
♪ Easy money sniper, call 'em the next Kevin ♪
♪ Headshots, don't even bother with Excedrin ♪
♪ Knowing the dudes that call him the next Devin ♪
♪ And I'm thinking Lambo truck or the X7 ♪
♪ Ha, I inspired to keep earning ♪
♪ Party and bullshit, it's time you just burn it ♪
♪ Success when you have the desire to keep learning ♪
♪ Till the wheels fall off ♪
♪ Then the tires will keep turning ♪
♪ Uh. D-block, so raspy ♪
♪ You already know what it is, so don't ask me ♪
♪ ♪
Ha-ha!
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ ♪
- Some of the older guys, like, would have a radio outside.
And this radio would play Doo Wop or Ron G mixtapes
or S&S or whoever was the mixtape DJs at the time.
You would hear those tapes, how they were made,
put together, the blueprint for a mixtape.
- You know, you find your own lane.
- ♪ On top with the underground ♪
- I would rhyme on my tapes. Ron G would blend.
- Ron, come on, Ron G!
[stammering] Ah!
- Yo, you had Ron G tape, you were smashing.
I'm telling you right now.
You was with a chick, you smashing.
- My mother, being that she didn't like
the hip-hop at the time,
and she used to be playing all these old school records--
Lou Rawls, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross--
I was able to take a lot of those songs.
I'd start playing the songs off from the cassette.
And then I can hear the beat behind it,
but then I would record it on another tape deck.
- ♪ It's nothing that I'd rather do ♪
- Doo Wop had a tape that was legendary,
which was 95 Live.
- Nobody had known rappers rhyming on they tape
at the time, nobody.
♪ Who is this, doing this synthetic type of ♪
♪ Alpha-beta psychedelic fucking ♪
♪ Emphasis from the funk abyss ♪
♪ Blowing up the spot ♪
I was just trying to separate myself from everybody else.
- Doo Wop was the first DJ to feature
all these freestyles on a mixtape.
- I loved Doo Wop tapes.
A lot of mixtapes was, like, forcing it.
And he was just always cool.
And I felt like if he said
he fuck with it, he really fucked with it.
- It had everybody who was everybody
with a freestyle.
- ♪ Scout sewing up the Brooklyn ballers is who I be ♪
♪ When I was young, I used to hang a nigga from a tree ♪
- In a studio that could only fit about three people,
I had MOP, Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe,
the engineer, and like, five of my people.
- ♪ I'm down with the Busta, straight from the under ♪
♪ Just like Stevie Wonder ♪
♪ You about to feel the thunder ♪
- They was there 'cause they wanted to be
on a mixtape, period,
because they could say things on the mixtape
that they can't say on a record label.
- The top story, evening news, I'm the shit.
They been deceiving you.
- They'd be censored or they might wanna air out a beef
or something that they can't do on the record label.
So they did it on the mixtapes.
- My favorite, G-Bo the Pro and Double R.
- You know, because we were doing it on a four-track,
it wasn't traditional DJing.
It was lay down one record...
- ♪ Bring it back, come back ♪
- Stop the tape, rewind it.
- ♪ Heal up, wheel up, bring it back, come rewind ♪
- Lay another one on top of it.
- ♪ Powerful impact, powerful impact, powerful impact ♪
♪ Boom, come back ♪
- Whoa, this is-- this is no longer a mixtape.
This is--this is a production.
- The production was incredible.
The vibe was incredible.
And it really showed us the power of the music
and what we could do.
- ♪ You know Monica? She got a sister named Veronica ♪
♪ There is no girl nowhere around like her ♪
♪ You wanna talk to her? Don't be hasty ♪
♪ Her attitude is bitter but she looks real tasty ♪
♪ The type of girl you dream about marrying ♪
♪ Her nationality is Trinidadian ♪
♪ She used to catch the Number Four out of Utica ♪
♪ I used to fantasize about what I'ma do to her ♪
♪ But she would speak on my dress code ♪
♪ Better leave now that my suits ♪
- And then you had the guys down south making mixtapes.
- You get to DJ Screw.
- Houston shit was all about that slowed down aesthetic,
that ambient cloud shit.
- That was a whole different animal,
but super groovy.
Like, I loved those mixtapes.
- DJ Screw's earliest mixtapes were just like
every other DJ's earliest mixtapes, you know?
All the new records happening.
And then there's a shift, right, where Screw,
for some reason decides to start pitching down.
[deep reverb]
♪ ♪
- So it gave it a very slow, laid back kind of feel,
which kind of fit with the lifestyle of Houston.
♪ ♪
- When I was a kid, I stayed on Candler Road
and I stayed in these apartments
called Misty Waters.
Up the street there was a plaza,
and there was a DJ there named DJ Edward J.
- The Edward J mixtape was an Atlanta based thing.
So it was more about the blends and the mixes.
- "King Edward J, I say." You know what I mean?
Like, you know, that was his voice, right?
And--so he made a lot of DJs famous, like, years later.
Like, um-- [singing]
- They would just take a lot of slow songs
and they would add 808 bass on top of 'em
and just talk over 'em.
So it was a plaza I would go to
to just kind of, like, hear these tunes.
- And it was called the Bedroom Boom.
And those are some of the most prestigious tapes
that you can ever get.
- Everybody had their own style,
you know what I'm saying?
Like, Tony, I ain't gon' lie.
Tony Touch used to come with rings.
And, you know, the way he would DJ,
it would just be, like, a swag.
Like, he'd be like-- [air whooshing]
I used to watch all that.
We about to intro to the stage,
my nigga, DJ Tony Touch.
- The 50 MCs Collection.
- So this a box set of all of them.
Features over 150 of the biggest names in hip-hop,
freestyling, straight spitting.
- He introduced himself as Tony Touch.
I thought he was a Black cat, you know?
I had no idea he was a Puerto Rican guy, you know?
- Basically we working on tape 50, son.
I had my DJ equipment at home. I would take my time.
♪ Check, check, check, check ♪
♪ Check, check, check, check, check ♪
♪ Check it over here, baby pop ♪
- There was no template for the process.
So everything that you did,
you was doing it for the first time.
- ♪ Out to get the bootlegger ♪
- Sometimes you'll be halfway through a mixtape
and you'll, like, mess up a scratch.
And I'd watch you. And you'd be like, "ugh!"
- Yeah. - And I remember, yo,
nobody could talk to this dude.
'Cause I would just sit and I'd just look at a record.
[laughter]
He'd be like-- [roaring]
- This is tape 46.
- ♪ Kick it over here, baby pop ♪
♪ Out to get the bootlegger ♪
♪ Make mad noise, it's the new fucking terror ♪
♪ 1994, flipping off a new era ♪
♪ The mighty D-Stroy with the Rican Renegade ♪
♪ Bring your brigade and pack a Medicaid ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm wicked with the lyrics ♪
♪ And he's nice with the fader ♪
♪ We get around the world just like the equator ♪
♪ Serving competition like a restaurant cater ♪
♪ Touch and D-Stroy, kid, nigga, check your data ♪
♪ 'Cause I kick like soccer, blast like Binaca ♪
♪ Shine like the sun, so get your Blue Blocker ♪
- It was that serious to be on a mixtape
and motherfuckers was just going to niggas houses to rap.
- All the artists knew this is what keeps me alive.
This is what keeps the vibrancy going,
the cassette in the hood.
- Ones, baby. - Break it.
- Flip Mode is the fucking squad.
- Ham and eggs. - Likely not.
- Oh, no ham. - Breakfast time, dude.
We still breaking the fucking day with hip-hop
banging in your brains, dude. Don't matter!
We coming, fucking natural disasters.
Whirlwinds, tornadoes,
fucking volcanoes and shit and earthquakes,
shifting the earth's crust.
Blowing up your mom's with those stomps in the back.
Family, your father's asleep too.
Breakfast time, dude. We still wilding, fuck.
Tony Touch, what the fuck is the deal, dude?
- One of the most amazing things to me about
the mixtapes, in my experience, is the way they would travel.
- The way it rippled out through the culture at large,
I think is something that you really can't even define,
but I think is pretty significant.
- It hit everywhere.
It's not as if mixtapes were solely a street thing.
They started out as a street thing.
But like everything else with hip-hop,
once the suburb kids heard about this,
well, we had to have it.
- People would come from out of town
to come buy these tapes.
- And these kids used to come all the way to Bushwick
just to buy their gear,
just to buy their weed,
and to buy that mixtape.
And then they back on their way to Long Island.
- Those who knew, knew,
and they were part of this special network.
- Oh, I know someone.
His friend lives in New York.
He's gonna bring me the new Ron G tape.
- And it would be like this fucking thing
you'd pass around.
"Yo, let me dub that. Let me hold that."
You know, maybe your friend, yo, he dubs 'em.
Yo, you could dub 'em?
Like, I didn't know how to fucking dub 'em.
- I had it. You was my man. Go ahead, dub it.
- Fuck, yeah, I want that shit.
- And cats were trying to rob me for it.
Like, they would come up to me and be like,
"yo, let me hold that." - Nah, you ain't holding this.
- God forbid you let someone hold it
and then they broke your fucking tape.
- There's actually been fights, shoot-outs, stabbings,
over fucking tapes.
- It made it all the way from 125th Street to the point where
nerdy Jewish kids who my brother's meeting
at Brandeis University are bringing
the tapes back from New York.
- So a kid like me, I would bring my collection down.
And then they would span and fan out through the college.
And that's how they moved.
- Those things got in the hands of
people you wouldn't even expect.
- All my fights, I listened to mixtapes.
And now I'm training to the music.
- My team got all the music through me.
- So these are 90-minute tapes.
- I got it from Khalid. I got it from DJ Tony Touch.
- And then stops. All right. Take it out.
Put it back on. Click. Bang.
We got another 90 minutes. Let's do exercise.
- They ship it to me, I get it out to Orlando.
- We can't stop. We're invincible.
We're almost like immortal.
It's listening to the music
and that's all we're talking about. Boom.
- I didn't know that shit could go that far.
Like, I didn't--I had no idea.
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- I remember selling my mixtapes
at the Carroll City flea market in Miami.
- Somebody had a cousin from Brooklyn.
And they would shoot music down.
All of the people that you now recognize
as part of the Houston movement
all started from the mixtape areas.
- We'd get the imports, 'cause, you know,
somebody knew somebody from out there who brought one back.
And then they would go copy it
and make it for their boys out here.
- There was a time when I first met AM
and he was playing at, like, these little clubs
in LA like the Dragonfly.
And he was bored. He was bored where it was.
He was bored with LA clubs and this thing.
- You'd hear it maybe once. And you're like,
"yo, what was that?" and you would never hear it again.
And then you'd be chasing it, chasing it, chasing it.
- And we get in his car.
He had this Jeep Cherokee with, like, the CDs in the thing--
in, you know, the overhead. - And then you're like,
Okay, I think I found it at a flea market.
- It was like having gold.
- Man, I just heard this thing,
and it's the best fucking thing I've ever heard.
It's like, it's this guy called the Z Trip.
Listen to this.
[record scratching] - ♪ Tall and tan ♪
- And it was "The Girl from Ipanema" over "Planet Rock."
- ♪ The girl from Ipanema goes walking ♪
- And they had these records that was mixed and blended.
But a lot of times they didn't have
California music on there.
And we figured that's a good way to make a record.
How do we do this?
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- We're here!
- [speaking Spanish]
- The first time that I listened to rap music,
it was because of a mixtape.
- It was Carolina, Bayamón. It was all around the island.
- If it wasn't for the mixtape,
a lot of y'all probably wouldn't know
who a lot of these reggaetonerosare.
- And everything was because of mixtapes.
- [speaking Japanese]
- Any time I would go to New York
and come back to Paris, I'd bring back tapes.
- [speaking French]
- If someone had gone across to the States from England,
you would want their mixtapes.
And as soon as that person came back,
they would start taping them and re-recording them,
sending them out to people here.
- There was some, you know what I mean, gifting going on
and lending and stuff like that.
And a lot of our cultural influences
came from that music.
- [moans]
♪ ♪
- ♪ I can feel it ♪
♪ ♪
- ♪ Yo ♪
♪ I know what the people want ♪
♪ But I'm dealing with something deep ♪
♪ I respect the mind of the writer ♪
♪ I respect the mind of the reader ♪
♪ I respect the mind of the lover ♪
♪ I respect the mind of the leader ♪
♪ I only respect the emotions of bro when he hold the heat ♪
♪ Runners are running around, doubling up on the pound ♪
♪ Police are shutting 'em down ♪
♪ Now hugging the curb, they end up in a trial ♪
♪ With debt and it's bugging me out ♪
♪ Stereotypes come with the hype ♪
♪ Media pumping the lies, feeding the flame ♪
♪ That's burning in front of your eyes ♪
♪ You rub 'em, covered and blind ♪
♪ How we really meant to talk ♪
♪ When they won't let us have a voice? ♪
♪ But every time you get defensive ♪
♪ It's seen as aggressive, never had the choice ♪
♪ Dripping but I'm never moist ♪
♪ Trying to get it with the boys ♪
♪ Mario, I want the coins ♪ [indistinct]
♪ Anyway, rappers are running with one, I put ten away ♪
♪ Praying and hoping that I put my pen away ♪
♪ How much you got on your back? I could never say ♪
♪ Couldn't replicate the vibe that I generate ♪
♪ Thick energy when I penetrate ♪
♪ Planning to come out the job in the get-away ♪
♪ Somewhere closer to the sun I can medicate ♪
♪ When I come up off the ground I might levitate ♪
- ♪ Let me show you about the sound of winning ♪
♪ I was on tour with legends scopin' lessons ♪
♪ To make pounds and kill it, found the skillet ♪
♪ And the barrel's kicking a thousand in it ♪
♪ No money's 'round so pull your face back ♪
♪ Like the head of an owl, let's spin it ♪
- ♪ I'm a family guy, Peter Griffin ♪
♪ And I ain't fucking with you kids, that's Gary Glitter ♪
♪ They gave me reasonable doubt ♪
♪ I guess you know the jig up ♪
♪ My team's winning, Jehovah be the witness ♪
♪ And Usher ain't the only one with a confession ♪
♪ It's hard to be ordinary, ask John Legend ♪
♪ Car just about fit in this economy ♪
♪ Living by the 48 laws ♪ [indistinct]
- So two British guys that lived in Brooklyn
that had actually come from the UK
with the intent to duplicating mixed tapes.
- The idea of the Tape Kingz was to take those tapes
out of the neighborhood and get DJs to put their tapes out
with the Tape Kingz logo.
- Tape Kingz was like a label that was putting out mixtapes.
- Doo Wop, 95 Live.
Ron G, It's On, Part Two.
Tony Touch, 50 MCs.
The Best of Biggie, Mister Cee.
- I saw their setup and I saw hundreds of
master tapes on the corner,
duplicates everywhere, blank tapes everywhere.
It was like a whole factory.
- Them tapes went all over the world.
- This isn't just a mom and pop thing.
These guys literally have their own record label,
which, again, is crazy.
These guys are paying no royalties, right?
No publishing.
It's a complete pirate organization, right?
I mean, you could flip a mixtape over
and it'd be like, "Tape Kingz."
- Yeah, shady business. [chuckles]
Um, I think, you know, as far as the economics
of the mixtape game,
you were selling them to the vendors on Canal Street for 5,
and they were flipping them and selling them for 10.
In other cases, a distributor would buy in bulk.
If you're moving 50 to 100,000 or more mixtapes
at anywhere between $2 and, you know, $5 a pop,
you can do the math.
If you're moving several hundred thousand mixtapes
all over the world, you know, at those margins,
you can do the math.
- I used to sell mixtapes to this guy over here.
I used to drop a box of 200 off to him.
I used to sell him a master tape.
- That's what I remember growing up,
you know, people out of they trunk.
- 20,000 in one day.
- I'd have, like, all my mixtapes
in the front of the fucking Lambo.
Pop it up. Africans come to me
and I distribute on Canal Street.
I was notorious. I ain't give a fuck.
- He was the first person I ever saw with a Lexus
that went from hard top to drop top in a button.
Takes tapes out of the car. I was like, boom!
I was like, holy shit. Like, that was crazy.
- The streets helped the mixtape
and the mixtape helps the streets.
- [speaking French]
- When I was out in the streets,
I sold those mixtapes like they were dope.
- Swap meets were the equivalent of
a Delancey Street.
You walked down and everything's right there.
- If know somebody in Mississippi,
they know somebody in Kentucky.
They know somebody in Kentucky, they know somebody in Alabama.
They know somebody in Alabama, know somebody in Tennessee.
Whether it's from the prison system,
you know, local hustlers, or strippers, or whatever,
it was all on one accord.
So word of mouth was better than, you know,
any promotion you could've had.
- This is actually a tape from when I was locked up.
My mom sent me this shit.
Forced MDs tape with the shrink wrap.
When I open it, it's a mixtape.
There's my Walkman from jail.
[hip-hop music]
There you go.
I'm selling these for $40 a pop.
$10 for the weekend.
I was giving mixed tapes to COs.
Had COs bringing me food on the weekend,
Alizé, all type of shit, son.
There was plenty of beats.
Niggas was getting robbed for mixed tapes in jail.
Yeah, niggas would rather get their head cracked
for a mixtape.
[sot static crackling]
- ♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Life's crazy ♪
♪ And I always told 'em life be crazy ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Life's a struggle ♪
♪ Life passion, life pain ♪
♪ It's all one in the same ♪
♪ Make it all make sense ♪
♪ They all slip, fall, they can't get right ♪
♪ They all slip, fall, can't get right ♪
♪ They all slip, fall, gots to get right ♪
♪ Get me back on my feet, stop playing with life ♪
♪ They all slip, fall, can't get right ♪
♪ They all slip, fall, gots to get right ♪
♪ Get me back on my feet, stop playing with life ♪
♪ I been through hella different phases like mazes ♪
♪ Trying to get on, brother was never there ♪
♪ I start banging, the Bloods gave me a home ♪
♪ Wasn't strong enough to face my problems that I had ♪
♪ A kid with anger issues ♪
♪ From all the shit I seen my father did ♪
♪ Chain gang, I been there, I was sitting there ♪
♪ Thinking about if I let my mama down ♪
[indistinct]
♪ First came the bullshit, the drama with my pops ♪
♪ I wasn't seeing him so I jumped into the street ♪
♪ Went got a Glock, like, this me ♪
♪ And I'ma be the seed who gon' feed Mama ♪
♪ So my little brother and sister won't ever need ♪
♪ I'm ready for the world at 16 a robber what I was ♪
♪ I'm doing this shit to feed myself and fam ♪
♪ Not for a street thug ♪
♪ Going too fast, I make you crash ♪
♪ But I couldn't see that far ♪
♪ Stuck in detention centers, fighting my evils off ♪
♪ They put me in a situation as a child to be a man ♪
♪ Ain't had no god, it's all helping hand, alone I stand ♪
♪ Damn, is it my fault? ♪
- Technology shifts culture.
Going back to the turntable, that changed everything.
You started recording live parties.
That was the first mixtape.
The live mix in your crib that you would do.
Then that turned into the CD.
♪ ♪
- Considering its quality and size,
the compact disk most certainly will become
a part of our everyday lives in the future.
- Epidemic just hit crazy when it switched to CDs.
- And I was like, yo, man, if I was the first one to put
a mixtape on CD, it'd be groundbreaking.
- Oh, man. The hustle came when you get to burn CDs.
And, you know, people came in and fucked that game up.
- The tapes went away and the CDs started
so that I was way ahead of the game.
- Now you could buy the machine.
Dudes had the machine.
They had multiple machines in their studios and shops
and they doing their own covers.
And, you know what I mean, the turnaround was way quicker.
- Then the flooding started to happen.
Then all the DJs started to flood the market.
- When it started getting flooded
and everybody and their mother was doing mixtapes,
then that immediately starts to kind of, like,
water down the specialness of it.
- The integrity of the music changed.
The integrity of the mixtape changed.
It became, who could sell more? How fast? How quick?
- Blast off.
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- [coughing]
- I heard what DJs played exclusives on the radio,
but this was different.
- Radio was aggressive
but the tapes were super aggressive.
- You always wanna put something on your mix
that is not supposed to be there.
- All of a sudden, I started hearing
these records that weren't out for months.
- We was playing things we wasn't supposed to play.
- Is anyone here from Queens?
'Cause I don't wanna offend niggas.
Queens niggas love to steal, okay? [chuckles]
- And then you got Clue coming in.
- ♪ Hey, yo, Queens get the money.
♪ Long time, no cash ♪
♪ I'm caught up in the hustle where the guns go black ♪
- Clue ushered in exclusives.
Before that, Braun or Capri, they'd have one or two.
Clue ushered in the whole tape being exclusives.
Clue had it the hardest.
Niggas fronted on him because he was from Queens.
The Harlem stores wouldn't carry his stuff.
It was strictly because of where he was from.
- You know, Clue's brand was built off of him
getting something first.
- Clue was the person who brung it to a level
where radio stations had to start
paying attention to it.
- They used to talk about Clue like a drug lord.
You know, the cars he would have, the money he would make.
- Clue would put this echo on his shit.
- [echoing] ♪ DJ Clue ♪
♪ Back again ♪
♪ Represent Queens to the fullest ♪
- You listen to a Clue tape, he puts the echo on the snare.
If the beat's going... [scats]
Clue, Clue, Clue!
And the shit echoes the fuck out
as the cars are riding away,
the shit sounds nuts.
Clue's personality wasn't as strong
as a Capri or a Doo Wop.
But his presentation, and the echo.
Because for me, being from the Bronx, the echo was like,
"Fuck what you talking about, 'this Queens nigga.'
This Queens nigga using the echo."
And that was tough to me.
- Everyone else prior to that was underground.
And everyone had the mixtapes on Jamaica Ave.
Clue was, like, the first person like, we went uptown.
We went to Harlem. Like, it was like going
to the West Coast at that time.
- His mixtapes, you know, kind of set a bar,
and showed that if you could be on this mixtape,
you one of the elite.
- To be on a Clue tape--
that was like winning a Grammy almost,
like, especially if you got that first top ten slots.
Like, when you listen to a Clue tape,
the beginning of the Clue tape was Nas.
He was damn near the biggest artist in America
at the time.
So you went to Harlem
and you see DJ Clue mixtapes
up there, you like, "Oh!"
Like, "Whoa!
Like, y'all know about Queens?"
- ♪ Yeah ♪
- People used to always look for that.
So I would put a--you know, a mixture of, like,
some of the hottest songs that was out,
and then put some exclusives on there,
as well as some new artists that had some dope music.
You know what I mean?
So back then, there was no Internet,
so you had to, you know, go to the mixtapes
to find the exclusive songs and the hot music.
- That was early Internet, was that Clue tape.
- DJ Clue was known for stealing DATs.
- The digital audio tape, or DAT,
has been called the wonder tape recorder.
- That was something that was different.
I don't know if you remember.
- Its ability to reproduce sound
is so good, it's got the music industry worried.
They're afraid it'll lead to worldwide pirating
and undermine the increasingly popular compact disc.
- As far as, like, a Queens mixtape DJ,
all we needed was one verse and a hook,
and you might as well say the song is gone.
- My introduction to DJ Clue was,
he leaked a Grand Puba song.
And I was pissed, 'cause my album had just started.
I was one, two songs in on a 2000 album.
And I called him up. He worked for Steve Style.
And I was like, "Yo, the fuck are you doing, G?
I don't even know how you fucking got that."
- Man, I would tell you where I got the freestyles from,
but I'd have to kill you, man. You know what I mean?
So I'm taking that to the grave with me.
- Like, him being down with Puffy,
and that's sweet peaches now.
They wanted to kill him.
- And Clue hates me to this day deep down inside me.
He hates me 'cause I told the story
about Biggie looking for the nigga.
- I had the original "One More Chance."
- ♪ Oh, Biggie, give me one more chance ♪
- I had, uh--I ain't gonna say a demo copy,
but I had, like, an early copy of it.
And I put it on a mixtape.
And Biggie got kind of upset on the radio.
He was like--
- Clue, I'm looking for you.
If you listening, watch you back.
It's all good.
Here we go.
- It just came to Biggie like, like...
- I forgot.
When you said tape recorder, I thought bootleg,
and I thought Clue. It's on.
- Oh, my God.
- So Biggie walks up to me
with the fucking army fatigue jacket,
pulls out, like, a .22.
He's like, "Yo, you seen that nigga DJ Clue?
I'm gonna clap that nigga when I see him."
I was like, "Nah. I ain't seen him."
You know what I'm saying? - Who was that?
- Notorious B.I.G., nigga.
Biggie. - Oh, he had a .22.
- Smalls was looking for Clue
'cause Clue put out one of his records
without permission
on the mixtape.
He was looking for him with a gun,
talking about he was gonna give it to him.
- That's what hip-hop is.
Catch me.
And if you catch me, you know,
we'll do it accordingly.
But until then, you gotta catch me.
You know what I'm saying? So..
[laughing with echo]
- That's where the outlaw shit comes from.
- That became a staple brand of not just him,
but the mixtape culture.
People were hungry to hear the next mixtape
because they never knew what they were gonna hear.
- At certain points, mixtapes became headaches.
♪ Rappers, I monkey flip 'em with the funky ♪
♪ Rhythm I be kicking ♪
♪ Musician inflicting ♪
♪ Composition of pain ♪
♪ I'm like Scarface sniffing cocaine ♪
- They're getting the Nas record
before it even hits the stores or before the records
even get on the radio or anything.
- I got in trouble for a lot of records.
Faith Newman, you know, she really
wanted to kill me for the Nas.
- Oh, yeah.
When I found out that S&S leaked Illmatic,
I wanted to kill him.
- Because I played seven songs, eight, really,
including the remix for "It Ain't Hard to Tell."
- The whole album had 10 songs on it.
- I didn't know he was gonna put this on.
- Somebody got their hands
on the majority of the album
and made its way to S&S.
And he put it out on the street.
- I got it.
I played it.
- It hurt the album,
you know, because he bootlegged it,
and then other people bootlegged it,
and then, all of a sudden, you could find it in England.
I mean, it was that bad.
- I had 21 records on my album.
I remember a DJ put 16 or 17 of them on his mixtape.
Why would you buy my album if you get 16 of them for free?
- Music shouldn't come out from an artist
until they're ready to release it.
- I would just be clueless. Like, yo, where are these cats
getting these records?
- So everybody had their methods.
- It was a hustle.
- You know a fucked-up word?
It's called "intern."
And you know what interns do, right?
They work for free.
What I did was sought out interns in every major spot.
And I would give them $100 or $200
to, when the CEO or the A&R or whatever left their office,
go get whatever they had laying around,
record it, put it back.
That's how I was getting a lot of my--
and niggas was confused.
Like, how the fuck he get--
I'm getting it from y'all.
They could never figure it out.
I'm going to the person y'all not paying
and I'm paying 'em, you dumbass.
- It's no secret we really had some issues with Whoo Kid.
- It's not like I wanted trouble.
It just happened with the tapes.
And I never paid attention.
And then here I am, getting caught.
- Any time you're in, like, an illicit trade
and there's money involved, there's gonna be
some kind of danger. I mean, like--
- You hear about mixtape dealers getting robbed,
kidnapped, thrown in trunks of cars.
- The more I was robbing motherfuckers,
the more rappers tried to catch me.
I got caught by Big Pun.
- Whoo Kid put out a song of Pun's without permission.
So Pun called them and made it look like, you know,
he was booking 'em for a show.
And Whoo Kid came, and...
- All I heard was Spanish lingo,
callate la boca, all this screaming.
- They kidnapped him.
They threw him in the van, pulled out machine guns
and shit like that, smacked him around.
- Yo, every gun you could think of.
Like, .38s, Glock 9s.
One had, like, a-- it looked like a Uzi.
He says, "Yo, I know you're--
"you're just trying to get put on.
"You're leaking shit.
"But I'm gonna explain to you. This is some street shit.
"This is Latin Kings, gangs. There's some shit going on here
"that you don't know nothing about.
"So if you do it again, then you're actually like--
you're doing it against me."
So in the intro to the next tape
he wants me to, like, say, "Fuck Jay-Z,
Fuck Rockefeller."
I was like, "I'll say whatever you want.
"Just get me the hell out of this car, yo!
I'm not dying for this shit, yo!"
- But at the end of the day, it was part of the game.
- You see it.
Mixtapes, motherfuckers.
- That's it.
[Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" playing]
- I always thought that if I could connect
my brand to music and the music world,
it would make the brand cool.
Mixtapes unlocked the door.
Peter Paul Scott and Andy Hilfiger
brought me this idea to do a mixtape.
And I said, you know, "What the fuck is a mixtape?"
I didn't know what a mixtape was.
And they said, "No, you don't understand.
"We're gonna get all these musicians to do music,
"put it on one tape, and then we're gonna hand
"the tape out, let it really permeate
into the culture." And it worked.
The hip-hop kids were connected to my brand,
and I was connecting to the culture.
- The culture wants to get heard.
The culture needs money.
The culture wants to--
wants to survive.
So the culture engages the corporate.
The corporate has nothing.
So it engages the culture.
Here's the marriage.
- You have sponsorships now.
The mixtapes were sponsored by Sprite.
- And then, of course, it turned into,
"Who's gonna get that corporate money?"
- The platforms were getting larger and bigger.
- That's how big this mixtape movement was.
We even took that whole vibe and kept it relevant
with the launch of 50 Cent's first album.
We had a man standing with a 9-millimeter pistol,
a do-rag, and a Gucci gun belt around his chest,
pointed at you, with all of his songs from all of his mixtapes
as a promotional tool for a company called RBK.
Reebok.
[hip-hop music]
- ♪ Yeah ♪
- 50 was basically born out of the mixtape.
- He did an idea that no one else had been doing.
- He made it sound like an album.
- The buzz, what the fuck he was saying,
rhyming over other beats.
- Because prior to that, DJs were making compilations.
And 50 was saying, "Yeah, cool.
"I'm gonna give you a mixtape,
but it's gonna be all my music."
- And he had to do it, because nobody was really
rocking with him at the time.
He was on Columbia.
Then he got shot. [gunshot, sirens wailing]
And they dropped him because they didn't want
no problems with it.
- Look, after I got hit, I went through this thing
where there's a fear
that you have because it hurts so bad.
And it's a different thing when you hit to the point
you can't walk, hand shot, your face is shot.
You banged up so bad you don't--
I wouldn't let Yayo and them see me.
I wouldn't let them come in the hospital when I was there.
'cause it would have changed their heart.
That was so uncomfortable, the fear,
that the only way I was able to make it go away
was to go towards the problem.
[hip-hop music]
♪ Many men wish death upon me ♪
I was like, "I'ma just make albums now."
- And he put out this mixtape called "50 Cent is the Future."
Game-changer.
- 50 was stealing the instrumentals
and redoing them.
- I'll take the records that I felt like were really good,
and then write my version off of a different spin
that I thought would have been cool if you did it like this.
When I got to "50 Cent is the Future,"
it was one photo shoot.
We did one photo shoot in the garage.
When it was done, we put, like, the fake barcode,
the--like, the track list.
We had to make it cool enough for the bootleggers
to feel like they just stole something.
- I think there's a lot of people on Canal Street
that got really rich off of 50 Cent mixtapes.
- I had turned the bootleggers
into my personal marketing team.
- They were so hot with mixtapes
that when Whoo Kid would walk into the office,
50 would literally pick him up upside down, shake him,
and whatever money fell out of his pocket,
50 would just pick it up and walk.
- Stealing music also put us ahead of the game
to see what would be the next single.
So if I'm constantly at the labels, lurking,
trying to figure out what's next,
I also get, like, the schedules.
- Go get me the tape. It don't matter.
Just--I need that first.
Whatever it is you can get your hands on.
- If Dr. Dre's gonna drop a single October 21st,
I would tell the A&R, "Yo, give me the DAT,
give me the instrumental."
So then I would be ahead of the game
and tell 50, "Yo, I think this is gonna be the next hit."
- Whoo Kid was instrumental with those 50 Cent tapes.
[banging noise] - Whoo Kid.
That was hard!
Boy, I cannot forget DJ Whoo Kid.
Man, he fucked them folks up.
Man, I loved how they had their own thing.
50 have some real shit going on.
Them mixtapes, they really showed people
how to do business.
- It was to the point where, like, a new song would come out
and if 50 did it, the DJs wouldn't even
play the original no more.
- People were playing their versions
more than their single.
- Every car driving down the street was 50 Cent music.
It was everywhere.
- G-G-G-G Unit.
It was the hardest shit I ever heard in my life.
- The established artists--
they would be pissed when they see the Africans
with the CD on the shit.
And I'm the happiest person to be there.
- At the same time, we kind of, like, switched
the way they thought.
I had to teach Snoop Dogg.
He was like, "What the fuck is a freestyle, cuz?
"What the fuck? I'm freestyling for free.
"I just sold 30 million albums.
Like, fuck is this, cuz?"
I had him do "P-I-M-P" and I let 50 hear it.
And 50 was like, "Fuck that.
"I'm not even changing this.
"This is a freestyle?
This sound like a record."
So then 50 just kept the original verse
and made it the remixes.
And then that woke up Snoop Dogg to understand,
you got to hurry up and put your album out
or you're just gonna be, like, old.
You don't wanna be that late nigga.
Like, you think you have a classic,
and then Soldier Boy comes out.
You! Now you're like, yo.
That's why 50 always had tapes out
because it helped him be connected with the streets
and understand the art of being current.
- Before I released my record, Master P came.
And he was like, "I wanna go on tour with this new album."
You know what I'm saying? And he was like, "Nah.
"They ready now. They better give $8,000 a show.
You can run around."
I'm like, "$8,000? Hold up.
This could get good."
The first show, Club Speed.
- You went to Speed, it was, razors came out the mouth.
Speed was serious.
- Like, back then, it was a little--
it was a little wild.
- I go first.
There goes the lamb to the slaughter.
I walk down the stairs.
I make the left to where the stage is at,
and all of a sudden, I see Red Cafe
wearing a do rag and a bulletproof vest.
I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?
50's gonna flip."
Then there's a fight.
All of a sudden, I see a Bic pen.
He start stabbing this dude in the neck
with a Bic pen right on the dance floor.
- Somebody got poked in the neck.
James Cruz come running upstairs.
He scared to death. He's like, "Yo, yo."
- We're not doing the show! We're not doing the show!
And 50 was like, "What the fuck you talking about,
we ain't doing the show?"
- He got stabbed because we standing here
instead of on the stage.
- He pushed me out of the way, goes down to the stage,
and rocks it.
- I never forget that.
♪ I get money, I get money ♪
- But for whatever reason, at that moment, 50's story,
his style, his aura, his voice, his cadence, whatever it was,
he could do no wrong. It was everywhere.
- Everyone wanted to make their own mixtape like 50.
They didn't even care about original beats no more.
They gonna make whole songs over other people's beats.
- That's when it became artist-driven.
Other artists started looking like, "Hey,
"I don't even need a mixtape DJ anymore.
I can just do this shit on my own."
- Wayne was called Mixtape Weezy.
He had his own alter ego.
And they'd just get on mixtapes and body that shit.
- What was fun for me was rapping on songs
that I'm not on, that I wasn't a part of.
He would cut on a bunch of instrumentals.
I would rap over those instrumentals.
You gotta remember, you're taking a song
that's a hit.
We have already learned this song,
and we learned to love it the way it is.
So you about to come touch it,
you better be about to do something
that's gonna make us really fuck with you.
At that time, there was no Internet.
There was none of that.
So what we actually did was burn a bunch of CDs,
go to a bunch of events, and pass 'em out.
- Lil Wayne was the one who really got us
into that free mixtape era.
- I never had no idea of having success.
This is just me having fun.
- He's like, "I didn't get that shit cleared.
But I'm not making money off of it."
- I actually don't even expect that somebody else
to even hear it.
We in New Orleans with this.
Just that I was killing it so much
that it got straight to your damn front door.
[doorbell rings] [laughing]
Other than that, nope.
My thought process behind my mixtapes were,
go crazy on all these people's songs.
I didn't have no structures as in, you know,
this one should be first. This one should be--
DJs got on top of that and said,
"Oh, okay. That's popping? The next time you do that,
"why don't you give me all those songs
"before you just start putting 'em out?
"And instead of you just putting 'em 1 through 12,
let me make 'em a good 1 through 12.
- So putting these mixtapes out like albums,
people were literally waiting for mixtapes to drop.
Right?
- ♪ G5 sitting on the runway ♪
- A mixtape is when you get that DJ,
he jacked 12 beats, you know.
He give you a Beyoncé beat
where the song is about love and hula hoops,
and you turn that bitch into a fucking song
about dragons and Draculas.
And the world remember that song
as dragons and Draculas.
That's--that's a mixtape.
That's what I do. Call me.
- Live shows in hip-hop were subsidized by free mixtapes.
That's exactly--what we just figured out right now.
What was happening was, the mixtapes
were getting them so popular
that they could actually sell shows.
And there was a time in hip-hop
people weren't doing live shows like that.
Lil Wayne was the master of that.
- I remember going on tour.
It was the name of one of my mixtapes or something.
Are we doing that? That's the name of this tour.
It came that far.
And, I mean, so that's--
I remember that feeling.
Like, "Damn, this shit worked."
So... - Yeah.
[speaking Spanish]
You know what I'm saying?
With Tony Touch up in here.
♪ Because I'm public enemy number one ♪
- Hell. - Tone.
[greeting indistinctly]
- What's up? - You good?
- We the house, dude. What's going on?
- Mixtape time? Mixtape time?
- Mixtape time, man. - Let's do it.
- Let's do this shit.
- ♪ You got no rap, but you want to rap ♪
♪ It's like a having a boat but you got no-- ♪
- ♪ Ha ♪
- [laughs] Spin that shit back.
- ♪ It's like a having a boat but you got no-- ♪
[record scratching over interrupted lyrics]
- ♪ You got no rap, but you want to rap ♪
♪ It's like a having a boat but you got no-- ♪
- [rapping indistinctly]
[record scratching]
- People used to sweat Kid Capri.
People used to sweat DJ Clue.
You know.
People use to sweat Kay Slay.
Like, it was a big deal for artists to get their song
on one of their cassettes.
Because they knew, A,
they might sell records off of that.
But B, street credibility.
- The mixtape DJ rises to a level of prominence,
and rightfully so.
Because the work was put in, really.
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
Just to let you know that the white man makes the rules,
whenever it's to his benefit,
them rules could change, like that.
Suddenly the FBI federal copyright law
gets pushed to the side.
Because in order for your label to sell a record,
it has to now be on a mixtape.
For your artists to now appear believable to its community,
you must appear on the mixtape.
- That's marketing that you can never, ever have the budget
to meet the power of what a mixtape DJ could provide
by putting your song on a tape.
- The labels got them vibes because they was getting
some of the music to me. You know what I'm saying?
So they knew what was up.
- I'm thinking the higher-ups, the labels,
got a little irritated.
But one hand washed the other.
- We wanna get this to the hottest DJ.
But, here.
- And the mixtape DJs-- really, ultimately,
at the end of the day, they demonstrated to the labels
how the label should be moving.
- I think labels and their legal teams
were always thinking
the mixtapes could be a problem,
for the obvious reasons, because they
were not properly licensed.
- Before I put out my first album, like, Dr. Dre,
Jimmy Iovine, they were, like, totally against,
like, mixtapes.
They did not want you to put out mixtapes.
They felt like it was free music,
you were giving stuff away.
Me and 50, we did it anyway with Whoo Kid
and all those G-Unit mixtapes.
And that's really what-- that was like promotion.
- Here you have a vibrant music scene
that's not based on music.
It's based on reputation, who you know,
gang affiliation, what you did, didn't do.
You're dealing with a culture.
And out of this comes music.
Now you just wanna sell the music.
Uh-uh.
Where did that music come from? Whose--what?
How? Okay.
- When it came to labels like Def Jam,
who had a full marketing team around them
and understood what a useful marketing tool this could be,
then it kind of tempered a little bit.
And then--
[modem sound]
- At the time, record companies were getting destroyed
by file sharing, and from people downloading
music and burning CDs.
- It's stolen music.
You know?
And that's what it is.
- This is what they now got to deal with.
[hip-hop music]
- Yo, they used to say the Paul Revere beat was,
it's yours. - For real?
Backwards? - Backwards.
♪ ♪
- It could be. Maybe they found it--
- Maybe they chopped it up.
- It's Def Jam alumni, nigga.
Whoo.
I've been on this business like I'm Kobe, nigga.
10 years straight, nigga, 15.
You know what it is.
I came in this bitch with a rope chain
and a pot, nigga.
♪ Yeah, I came in the game, hardest motherfucker lit ♪
♪ Before the Mad Libs, yeah, your boys balling chits ♪
♪ I'm obsessed with cutting records ♪
♪ I was cutting bigger stuff ♪
♪ Quarter ounce for the buck-25 ♪
♪ Taking those ♪
♪ Wasn't all that they was dripping ♪
♪ Was the water in the pot ♪
♪ Bought a quarter million dollar ♪
♪ Then I drove it off the lot ♪
♪ First I made a million dollars ♪
♪ Then I sold a million records ♪
♪ Then I find the IT and got them bitches out of Texas ♪
♪ Boy, you trying to make it stretch ♪
♪ Hit it with some warm water ♪
♪ You hit it with that cold, make that hard get harder ♪
♪ Hop up out that phantom with a cannon, make a move ♪
♪ Pull up on your front in broad day ♪
♪ And make a smoothie ♪
♪ Who's that looking in my window like I'm CeeLo ♪
♪ Nas need one mic, I only need a kilo ♪
[echoing] ♪ Snuff ♪
♪ ♪
- If I had to refer to the hustler mentality
of the mixtapes, the most memorable one
would probably be Young Jeezy.
- Mixtapes saved my whole entire life.
- As far as Jeezy, now their mixtapes?
- Like, that just gave me a way out.
- Their mixtapes are stories.
- It was the soundtrack of what was going on in the streets.
And I was knee deep in it.
- If you take these people who are, like,
once in a generation drug dealers,
people who are going and spending
hundreds of thousands of dollars in a night--
- People knew what I was into.
But the music was real.
- No one's ever seen anything like it, before or since.
- When Snowman started popping,
he had a lot of street support.
- Jeezy was the soundtrack to it.
- It made us actually go out and celebrate that,
and actually show it and learn how to get out
of that actual word "trap."
- I just wanted to give my music to people,
straight up.
If I get a deal, cool.
If I don't, you know, it is what it is.
- When I think about Drama,
I always thought of stuff like Jeezy.
- I used to call Dram, like, "I want you to do my mixtape."
This nigga would be like, "Yo, I never heard of you.
You ain't hot."
Like, what the fuck you mean?
Like, I'm the hottest nigga in the streets.
You know I'm saying?
I came up with this plan.
I was like, "I know what I'ma do."
I used to go to his crib and pay him $500
every other week to do my show tapes.
Trap or Die was a real thing.
I worked on it like it was an album.
I was under a lot of pressure.
So my first frame of mind was,
put my blood, sweat, and tears in this
in case I do go to prison or do get killed.
Like, they can hear what I was working on.
And I remember when I went and played it for Drama,
I played him the intro.
♪ There's so much white it'll hurt ya eyes ♪
- I just remember his face, and he just, like,
had this look on his face
like, "Oh, yeah, you have arrived."
- To me, at that point, Atlanta had something to say.
You know, the South had something to say.
- It swept through Atlanta.
- Like wildfire.
- ♪ Here I stand, a grown-ass man ♪
♪ All by myself, a grown-ass man ♪
♪ A young nigga with some grown-ass players ♪
♪ Who don't want fingers so know that man ♪
- Thank god for the mixtape.
You know what I'm saying? If you're gonna drop one...
♪ Most of these rappers are compulsive liars ♪
It better be hard.
You feel me?
Straight up.
- Trap or Die definitely changed
the world, the music world.
- I felt like I was on the highway listening to--
you know, you felt like you going through
Jeezy's struggle with him.
- I mean, this is no deal. Right?
- And so next time, when he put out an album,
you're an extra fan now.
You felt like, man, I listened to your mixtape.
And if you was telling the truth
on that mixtape, nigga, you went through some shit,
so I'm happy to see you put out this album.
- ♪ Realest nigga that ever done it, breathing or dead ♪
♪ Let's get it ♪
♪ Two record deals, radio-- ♪
[music playing sporadically]
♪ ♪
- ♪ Flaming hot lead burst out the clear blue ♪
♪ We 730, Bellevue, son, we dare you ♪
- At that time, if you had a hit record on a mixtape,
that was as powerful as a number one
on the Hot 100 on "Billboard."
- If you stopped 10 cars on the streets
that were playing music loud
and asked them what they were playing,
I would say 50% of those cars were playing a mixtape,
not a traditional label album.
- So when you start to see those ice style watches
starting to pop and those big old chains with the logos,
the fly rides,
DJ Clue in a Rolls Royce, like, hold up.
What's happening here?
- And that's how I actually kind of
scaled back a little bit.
Because it was getting a little bit too hot.
The RIAA was on people's heels.
So it was kind of like, you know.
- They got involved because when people are, quote,
unquote, stealing master recordings,
it's up to them to step in,
on behalf of all of the record labels,
et cetera, try to stop 'em.
- The mixtape DJ was an outlaw.
Okay?
The mixtape DJ-- the radio station
didn't really want him.
The record companies really hated him.
- You couldn't go too far over the radar.
You know what I mean?
Once you start going overboard and you have, like,
catalogs with, like, a lot of the major artists'
music on it--
- You're talking about hundreds of thousands
to millions of dollars lost in profits
due to lack of sales.
- The record companies got spooked.
- Whoever's in the line of fire is gonna get taken down.
- They were like, "Oh, we're losing sales.
We gotta do something about this."
- The record companies, they looking
at you funny at any moment.
The feds could be like, "What do you got in your bag?"
Any moment! At any moment.
And some DJs did get hemmed up.
- Obviously you gotta talk about Drama and Don Cannon.
Drama and Don Cannon-- they're the--
they're my last era of mixtapes, for me.
- I was giving my tapes away because I wanted to get on.
They had enough sense to make it a business.
- He took it to, like, fucking Scarface-type shit.
- It was amazing to watch how big Drama got.
- I felt like the golden child at the time.
- Drama was one of those guys that was able to get
maximum fame out of having mixtapes.
- And I felt like the industry was like,
"Okay, you have to go see Drama.
"You have to be on the Gangsta Grillz
before you put an album out."
- The Gangster Grillz franchise probably
became the biggest franchise in the history of mixtapes.
- He built up a huge nationwide following.
- So Drama curated it. He would distribute it.
He would host it.
- He had a room that had about thousands of mixtapes.
All his Gangster Grillz, volume, brrr,
you know, we had 'em all.
- When I looked at it, it was like, if you look at anyone
that was successful, they all had
some relationships with mixtapes.
- They were moving tapes crazily.
Like, they had--it wasn't just Atlanta locked down.
They had the entire mixtape world.
When I say world, they were selling tapes
from here to Japan.
- I didn't realize that there was another side
of where we come from that didn't totally get it
and wasn't as happy as we thought everyone was.
- You know, it's obvious in terms
of a record label wanting to make a sale,
and a mixtape DJ coming along.
- I remember Drama used to be in like a Nissan or something.
All of a sudden, Drama in Maseratis
and he had big Benz.
And I'm like, "What the fuck is going on?
He can't be doing that many mixtapes."
- You would think it was like he was moving kilos
or something crazy like that.
He was moving mixtapes.
- I don't know if I really saw the heat coming.
[sirens blaring]
- This is where the actual studio was,
this building right here.
I remember the day that the raid happened.
I got a call from my mans who was up here.
I almost felt like he was looking out the window.
- So I went outside to move my car.
- "Something's going on.
"The FBI, there's mad police, cars,
"sirens everywhere in front of their studio.
Yo, you need to get over here."
- Here come the trucks and the sirens and...
- I see mad cops, FBI. Yo, it felt like a movie.
- You know, they jump out and pull out the M-16s
and, you know, point 'em right at me.
- Fulton County SWAT team
and officers from Clayton County
raided DJ Drama's Gangsta Grillz
recording studio last night.
- [imitates static] "We got one of the perps, Tyree Simmons."
And I'm like, "Oh, shit."
They read me my rights and tell me
I'm being arrested for bootlegging and racketeering
under the RICO law.
- Donald Cannon, known as DJ Cannon,
and Tyree Simmons, known as DJ Drama,
are accused of bootlegging
thousands of CDs for sale on the Internet.
- The artists that they helped break, be it Jeezy, Snoop,
Pharrell, no one had any idea that the FBI
was gonna come knocking on anybody's door,
let alone them.
- Among the items seized,
50,000 counterfeit CDs,
recording equipment, computers,
cars, cash.
- The feds had to come in like,
"Yo, you doing too much, my man.
You're getting too much money right now."
- These niggas is making way too much money.
So now they want in. They want they cut.
- If they knock Drama, like, nobody's safe.
- Then I got, like, ten calls from about ten other DJs,
all concerned about the FBI knocking on their door.
- Yo, dog, all our names are on a list.
Like, they can get us all.
- Everybody was shook.
- Everybody was scared shitless.
It was like, oh, shit.
It can happen to anybody.
- I mean, we're not selling drugs.
We're, like, fucking putting together incredible music.
- I knew that was it.
It was over.
- I was like, yo, I can't let this culture die on my back.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I didn't come here for that.
- That was the one that kind of, like,
blew the whole game up.
And I'm sure many record labels, owners,
and executives were smiling and glad that he
was made an example of.
- It actually was more of a message to all the other DJs
and to hip-hop in general that no matter
how big you get, no matter how much money you make,
we can shut you down.
But they didn't.
- It definitely made me more famous than I ever was.
♪ And we back, like that ♪
It got my record label excited
to put my album out even faster.
♪ DJ Drama ♪
"Billboard" put me on the cover of the magazine.
♪ The Philly's nigga ♪
You know. So I was happy to be here
10, 11, 12 years later
and watch the mixtape game, in a different form,
still be bigger than it ever was.
- You know, the story of mixtapes going from criminal
to legitimate enterprise is really the story
of the industry trying to keep up with the culture.
- I think the label learned the lesson.
You can't fight them.
You have to adapt.
- So without mixtapes, hip-hop would probably be fucked up.
- Facts. [object clatters]
- That's funny, dude.
So, yeah, just go through this channel right here.
[record fast-forwarding]
- ♪ Blood stain on the sidewalks ♪
♪ Another nigga hit 'cause of side talk ♪
♪ Outline in silhouette, white chalk ♪
♪ They popped off ♪
♪ Another son dead, mom tears dried off ♪
♪ Every day in LA they trying to show off ♪
♪ Daddy issues, they never had a father ♪
♪ Show 'em right from wrong ♪
♪ Fuck a tissue no emotion ♪
♪ They like, fuck a bitch, hot boy summer ♪
♪ Credit card scammer sucker bitch ♪
♪ Set the world aflame, fuck everyone ♪
♪ Demon shit ♪
♪ And I'll just watch the world set aflame ♪
♪ I pray for the youth ♪
♪ They'll remember his name ♪
♪ Another one down everyday ♪
♪ I--I--I just watch the world set aflame ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ I--I just watch the world set aflame ♪
♪ ♪
- One of the things that's happened with mixtapes
is that, as they've grown in stature
and everyone wants to be a part of it,
because they understand the value
and the cultural relevance of it,
there's been this perversion of the term mixtape.
- A mixtape these days is dead, history.
No longer. It doesn't exist.
When they turned to people just putting out albums,
you're just putting out regular music,
meaning it's not a song that's out.
This is produced music you did in a studio,
and you put this shit out and call it a mixtape.
No, that ain't a mixtape.
I'm sorry. That ain't a mixtape.
A mixtape is, jacked somebody's beat and kill 'em.
And if you can't do that, that ain't a mixtape.
That's an album that you called a mixtape.
Yeah.
- So I think it's transformed,
mutated into something
that's absolutely vital.
But it doesn't have a lot to do with where it started.
- Most of these artists come up independent.
The label gets on late.
But these cats have already blown up
on YouTube and the Internet.
And the reason why is because they're streaming.
What are they streaming?
They're streaming on Spotify and SoundCloud.
And so their version of a mixtape,
which is online now,
has them performing at festivals,
getting $100,000 a show.
- We turned playlists into mixtapes.
- You make a playlist. Curate your best playlists,
because that's all somebody gonna do.
They're gonna nitpick through your project.
Before, people used to pay the full amount,
so they would just listen to the whole shit back and forth.
And like, I paid them for this shit.
- It was different for me coming up
'cause you have a record, and it had life.
There was a story behind it.
Now it's like, the song comes out.
Poof, it's out. It's in and out.
The next week, the next record.
- You don't hear nobody just blowing up because they did
a dope freestyle on the radio. You don't hear nobody.
Like literally people are online, posted up with smoke,
posted up with guns, posted up with bitches, online,
on they block, online,
shooting motherfuckers on Facebook Live online,
getting locked up online.
Streets definitely online. Sorry to tell you.
- That's the game, man, mixtape streams.
It's pretty much all the same.
It's just reinvented.
- Yeah, you can call it whatever you wanna call it,
playlists or whatever. It's a mixtape.
You know the vibes. [laughing]
- That's the power of that word.
You know, it's transcended.
- These psychologies with the cassette, long gone now,
but affecting us in certain ways
that we don't even remember where it came from.
- As for another mixtape from me,
you'll be able to stream 13 to 14 other people's songs
that your dog just fucking slaughtered.
That's a mixtape.
- What we gonna do right here is go back,
way back, back into time.
[hip-hop music]
- The mixtape DJ showed everyone
what hip-hop is supposed to sound like,
unrestricted, uncut.
Here's the music.
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- Freedom is a road
that's seldom traveled by the multitude.
- ♪ Over here with number one ♪
- ♪ Show 'em--show 'em-- show 'em what you got ♪
- ♪ Don't call it a comeback ♪
♪ Don't call it a comeback ♪
♪ Don't--I say, don't call it a-- ♪
♪ ♪
- I made a couple of dollars.
But some of y'all ran off on the plug, with the bag.
Y'all got it.
And you didn't go to jail.
Nigga, what's up?
[laughing]
- Never mind that. Oh.
What was it again?
I fucked up.
It's that pothead shit.
What's up?
My short-term memory sucks.
My long-term memory is amazing.
Never mind that. Focus on this dope shit.
- You go to the next one.
Yes.
[bold hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- Little Simmons right here. - Big D.
- ♪ Huh, hoo ♪ Damn.
♪ Slow down, baby ♪
♪ The whole town's crazy ♪
♪ Motion picture, nigga ♪
- ♪ What up, AZ? ♪
- ♪ Diaz brothers ♪
- ♪ With Sosa, huh ♪
- ♪ Wapo ♪ - ♪ It's only right ♪
- ♪ Toca♪ - ♪ Let's go ♪
♪ Scratch, you know what it is ♪
♪ Let's turn up one 'em. Ya heard ♪
- ♪ Pharmaceutical shit, nigga ♪
- ♪ Slow down, baby ♪ - ♪ That's right ♪
- ♪ Slow down, baby ♪ - ♪ Yo ♪
♪ Talk to 'em, why ♪
♪ Them trailblazers back at it ♪
♪ Raise your glasses to them ♪
♪ Not your average niggas, we make magic ♪
♪ But no rabbits, nigga, we just pulling out gat ♪
- ♪ And yo, Rob, we got shooters for that shit ♪
- ♪ My bad, kid, I caught a flashback ♪
♪ Hashtag, TBT, 1998 ♪
♪ You and me up at D&D ♪
♪ Cooking up that D-I-A-Z brother crack ♪
- ♪ Wapo ♪ - ♪ What up ♪
- ♪ It's time to double back ♪
- ♪ Paint 'em with the Dapper Dan leather ♪
♪ We rap better than rap niggas ♪
♪ Even though we scratch records ♪
♪ I'm about to smack academic ♪
- ♪ Never mind that focus on this dope shit ♪
- ♪ I know, but these vultures is fucking up the culture ♪
- ♪ But it's a new day ♪ - ♪ Oh, well ♪
♪ Let's give 'em new work ♪
♪ Have him running out the club like jewels and new work ♪
♪ Jumping in the Uber talking about ♪
- ♪ Do you remember ♪
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
♪ You know how we do ♪
♪ It's a full time jack move ♪
♪ Got to be cool ♪
♪ Yeah, I'm that dude ♪
♪ And even though the track smooth ♪
♪ I'ma talk smack in that groove ♪
♪ And call 'em out ♪
♪ I don't know what these rappers is talking about ♪
♪ See me and my man's got all the clout ♪
♪ Cause Diaz brothers gonna work it out ♪
- ♪ We gonna work it out ♪
- ♪ It's the tale of the tape ♪
♪ Five foot 11 with a tail and a cape ♪
♪ Plus I'm weighing in like a buck 88 ♪
♪ And once it all drops, I'm upping the rate ♪
- ♪ Bring it back ♪
- ♪ Do you know you fucking with? ♪
♪ Me, Wapo oh yeah and a bunch of spics ♪
♪ And we always keep something lit ♪
♪ And stay free from that sucker shit ♪
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- ♪ On the corners of Prineville ♪
♪ I let the thing talk to you ♪
♪ I'm talking the mark to you ♪
♪ Same talk to you ♪
♪ Y'all niggas doing felony crime ♪
♪ For them niggas that won't jaywalk for you ♪
♪ Diaz bros, bring it back ♪
♪ Throw me to the wolves, return leading the pack ♪
♪ From the days when you get your face caved in ♪
♪ Crushed in, face down on the pavement ♪
♪ Hashtag when I drop by, 50 emcees, 95 live ♪
♪ Stomping this bitch, side by side ♪
♪ Talking to Mac Lizzie, five time five ♪
♪ Young boy shit, who wants rope ♪
♪ The return of the rampage two point oh, motherfucker ♪
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- ♪ I'm on a rampage ♪
♪ ♪
[smooth hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
- We just serving history, just keeping it what it is.
See, we don't have so many things that we had back then--
fucking mixtape, fucking music, just things
we had back then.
We don't have 'em, and we miss 'em.
So, shit, if we can still have a little bit of it
and still call it what it was, then let's do it.
But make sure it's a fucking mixtape though.
Make sure it's a beat that you--
you know what I just said earlier.
Please.