A Brief History of Mixtapes

"This I dedicate to the mixtapes I hate
Exclusive shit it really holds no weight
Put ya skills on the plate backspin to '88..."

~~Pete Rock, Truly Yours '98

My older brother recently called my attention to a pretty interesting article about mixtapes on npr.org. Check it out here http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122319397 In it, they discuss the phenomenon of artist-centered mixtapes in rap, and how they've pretty much supplanted major label releases as the long-form recording format of choice for hip-hop consumers. It's cool that NPR covers stuff like this, though I agree with many of the reader comments, which basically held that the article was decent but it's a shame they only scratched the surface, with most of the artists featured being more on the pop side of rap. Then again, I'm pretty unfamiliar with the whole phenomenon of artist-centered mixtapes in hip-hop, so the article was pretty informative for me, and put me on memory lane, reflecting on hip-hop mixtapes in general.
In the late 80s and very early 90s, when I was in my most active hip-hop head phase, the record labels were letting hip-hop artists do pretty much whatever they wanted on records, so artists didn't really need the extra outlet of exclusive mixtapes.
The mixtapes at that time were more or less home-dubbed cassettes of New York and L.A. radio shows, which hip-hop heads in all areas between would trade amongst each other, similar to the tape-trading circuit that arose in the early days of thrash metal. This evolved into fans making and trading or selling their own tapes, very D.I.Y. stuff. I used to do a bit of that, though I never really traded or sold what I made and instead gave them as gifts.
Mixtapes made on a home stereo were often referred to as "pause tapes," which referred to the practice of pausing the cassette at a certain place to change to a new track in an effort to simulate a deejay mix or blend. This is the way I made most of my tapes back in the day. Another subgenre of mixtapes is the "blend tape." "Blend" refers to the practice of blending R&B hits with hardcore hip-hop breakbeats and instrumental tracks. One major popularizer of "blend tapes" was New York deejay Ron G, immortalized in Phife's lyrics from the 1993 A Tribe Called Quest track We Can Get Down, where he says, "My rhyme styles be blendin' like a Ron G tape" (see audio-track below). Another hot track that immortalized mixtapes in general back in the day was the song Mix Tapes from the debut (and only) LP from Los Angeles crew The Nonce, 1995's "World Ultimate." (see video below)
Sometime in the early 90s, it became common for noted hip-hop radio deejays to produce cassette compilations of the latest records and exclusive mixes, cutting between them with scratches and beat breaks and stamping them by shouting their deejay name over the tracks at select points during the tape, in a manner similar to their radio show mixes.
Of course a lot of big records were broken this way. But I was always so up on what was coming out back then that I never felt a need to drop money on the stuff, unless they had exclusive tracks that I felt might never see the light of day on a major label release.
Of course the trend was eventually co-opted by the major labels, first in 1995 when Loud Records/BMG released the first major-label "mixtape": New York deejay Funkmaster Flex's "The Mix Tape, Vol. 1: 60 Minutes of Funk." (Other notable releases in this vein include the 1999 Sway and King Tech disc "This Or That"). It was a big success and actually a pretty accurate reflection of what mixtapes of the time were about, but sometime around 1999 major-label mixtapes played out and the trend went back underground, although there was still the occasional major release with deejays like DJ Clue And Kay Slay. At this point the notable difference was that there was less scratching on the tapes/CDs and more shouting, as especially DJ Clue became famous for his distinctive verbal nametagging, shouting "CLUE!"　at the beginning of each song and at other times throughout. Some songs that first broke on Clue mixtapes just don't sound the same without his familiar holler adorning them.
Sometime in there, and perhaps earlier than I'm aware, artist-centered mixtapes were ascending in popularity. To be honest, as I said it's a trend I know little about, since I really began losing interest in current hip-hop by about 1997-98. Anyway, I can't believe the candy that passes for raw hip-hop these days. Listening to the tracks on the NPR site was interesting, but I swear pretty much all ten of those "emcees" would have been eaten alive or laughed off the rap pages pre-'97.

This is my take on the history of mixtapes in hip-hop, I tried to be as accurate as possible while still going mostly off my own memories. What are yours? Let's open up the discussion!