why are you browsing KTT on your work computer?

Celebrity sextapes and mixtapes disappeared around the same time

My names on the building.

pretty sure they took that tape down from streaming and everything a few years ago

2016 was the last year niggas was bumping mixtapes

• Rise of artists releasing albums as mixtapes (Nostalgia Ultra, B******, Weeknd Trilogy, Chance, A$ap, art.dealer.chic eps, IFYRT, probably way more)

• Rise of streaming, combined with Drake releasing IYRT or Chance’s Coloring Book as “commercial mixtapes”. This to me felt like the death knell for the term imo. It was no longer different than an album streaming-wise

you can get copyright strike automatically nowadays

everyday yal mourning bout the same old s***

wats the benefit of artists puttin out a free tape in this economy rather than jus uploading it to tier 1 spotify and at least getting cents on the $ for it

When you could get paid for them on bandcamp or distrokid

I think the lines started getting blurred with streaming when an artist would drop a project full of original music on streaming but be considered a "mixtape" rather than an album starting with IYRTITL, You Should Be Here by Kehlani, Coloring Book by Chance, Barter 6, etc. When you search them all up they're considered "commercial mixtapes" and they went straight to streaming. I feel like the casual fan wouldn't know the difference and would just call them albums.

None

That’s why no young artists strive to create consistently great projects.

second sentence a lie and doomer generalization.
causation needs to be proven

also not hearing wat incentivized them to do so before that doesnt also exist today nor any proposals for a future that would change this supposed attitude.

streaming

Obviously when streaming became a thing

That’s how artists gained fanbases before

If it’s still happening name them

amen

(+) soundcloud exists

You mean .003 cents.

That’s when the real s*** happens (queerbait)

Good point, it's better than $0 though

And the amount of lost/unorganized media because of the unclearable songs/platforms getting shut down is pretty heartbreaking.

I'm not Pro-Spotify..But I am Pro archiving/Monetization

At the end of the day there should be some type of modern platform that is built for mixtapes that counters the corporate red tapes, and offers free music or paywalling/subscription..

I think Untitled is trying to be that. But it isn't organized like Datpiff.

Hopefully someone figures it out.

You could debate it’s better than $0

How are these new artists coming up doing comparing to those that came up dropping mixtapes for free?

When IYRTITL came out and finding out it was supposed to be a Gangsta Grillz mixtape was pretty much the beginning of the end of mixtapes.

Especially considering at the time buying mixtapes off iTunes was still taboo.

Yeah Gucci also sold NoDJ versions of his mixtapes from iTunes, but the trickle down from IYRT for sure accelerated it.

Doesn’t help at all that it went Gold first week lol

I mean some of these artist's eating pretty good off of getting Youtube money on top of all the DSPS and actually being able to register the songs for Publishing/Mechanicals etc..there's more accessibility to build an actual independent business with all of these things at hand.

I think there are some artist's doing way better and building better businesses all around now vs. then.

But the keyword is some, because clearly some artist's from the era went on to be legends and paving the way for some of the tactics used to be successful in todays terrain, like Wayne, Drake, Curren$y, Gucci, etc..the list goes on.

So I would say better artist have come from the Mixtape era so far (easily)..but the conditions to build a business of rap independently are in a better place.

Example: Baby Smoove..been indy for close to a decade now. Streams MILLIONS a week. Easily bringing in like 30-50K a month based off catalog alone.

In a vacuum yea sure sounds great. Smaller artists do it all the time. But the reality is that once an artist gets big enough people are gonna want to be compensated. It being "free" sidestepped most if not all copyright laws, allowing artists complete freedom of expression. Think about how expensive it would be to bring a tape like Da Drought 3 to streaming properly. And that's why it's not there

Pretty good example honestly

Che it’s not restoring no type of feeling
🖕🤣

Nigga is ass