#DeepCuts: The Mixtape Tracks You're Sleeping On

The hip-hop industry has gone from releasing hundreds of rap CDs a year to only a handful. As a business, the music industry has been very risk-averse of late. Which is understandable; they only way they really make revenue is through 360 deals that take a piece of every revenue stream, to make up for the lost album sale dollars.

A lot of the money going into hip-hop in the late '90s and early '00s was about gaming the system: a single's sole purpose (in the business's eyes) was to sell an album. And of course, much of the time, these albums were not so good—padded-out longplayers from artists who really only had a couple of songs in them.

On the other hand, albums aren't the only way to experience the genre. They aren't even, barring an aberration in the mid-90s, the best way. Some of the genre's greatest songs, especially in the early '80s, would never be heard if you only listened to full records.

This month, we aimed to take a look at artists who might not even be producing great albums—or albums at all. But hopefully, their contributions won't be sold short, because these songs kinda jam anyway.

Welcome to October's edition of DeepCuts: The Mixtape Tracks You're Sleeping On.

RELATED: The Best Albums of October 2013
RELATED: #DeepCuts: The Mixtape Tracks You're Sleeping On (September)
RELATED: The Best Albums of September 2013

Mixtape: Kings Landing
Producer: Kid Art and Cartier Court

Thus far, Vinny Cha$e has had a somewhat innocuous run; the rapper's beat selection has always been his strong suit, and how great a song is is very dependent on how well he (or a guest artist) adapts to it. Kid Art is really coming into his own as a producer, as on this track and "5 Star Hotel." Vinny gets overshadowed on "Money Tonight," but only because he's up against Ma$e, who absolutely coasts—and "coasts" is the perfect word for it—above the "Ashley's Roachclip" break (you know it). No one does laid back swag like Ma$e: "I'm from the town where no lames allowed/Park cars and bars and make angels bow."

RELATED: Tank Top, Flip-Flop, Really Nothin' Fancy: Ma$e's Enduring Influence

Mixtape: F.N.O. (Failures No Option)
Producer: Tha Jerm

Sometimes, a writer can capture a rapper's style so perfectly that it sticks with you for years. This is the case with writer Kelefa Sanneh's description of Lloyd Banks, in a 2004 New York Times piece describing the rapper's "felonious purr." It's an apt description for the rapper's velvety delivery, in which threats float forward as if part of the atmosphere.

This tape is, straight up, front-to-back, one of the most underrated released this year. In the twilight of his career, assisted primarily by frequent beatmaker Doe Pesci, Banks is putting together verses that form perfect shapes like clouds of dirty smoke, unfurling as if they already existed in formation and merely needed his voice to bring them to life.

Mixtape: Blatlanta 2
Producer: Ferrari Smash

While Young Thug's eccentricity threatens to turn him into another Lil B-type eternal outsider, he's still got the ability to flip a hook that sounds like it could soundtrack an actual legitimate crossover single. It's what gives him more potential than the ever-increasing pile-on of sub-average post-Lil Wayne autotune detritus. "Let's Go Play" is a perfect example, although in this case, the hook is actually provided by Bloody Jay. Both Thug and Jay find their groove not in weirdness, charisma, hooks, or in rapping ability, but the way these varied impulses find a balance and play off of each other.

Mixtape: Gangland 2
Producer: E Dan

Most of Chevy Woods' Gangland 2 might not seem notable to non-Taylor Gang fanatics, but toward the end, the E Dan-produced "Tony Hawk" jumps out immediately. It sounds more like a lost track from guest Curtis Williams' recent Half Forgotten Daydreams. This is mainly because of the beat, a bounce track that sounds clean percussive, like pots and pans banging together in time. It also stands apart from the stream of West Coast "ratchet" sounds, post-Mike Will Atlanta bangers, and smooth stoner beats that dominate basically every mixtape tracklist on DatPiff these days.

Also, it's refreshing to hear a "Tony" reference that isn't to Montana.

Mixtape: Extra Gramz
Producer: Lostarr

Talbotton, Georgia-born Bohagon has had a rough go since first catching Lil Jon's ear and landing on So So Def Bass All Stars Vol. 2 in the late '90s. He's a rapper with a distinctive lilt to his vocals, who's managed to spend a lot of time underneath the radar of most hip-hop press while maintaining a presence regionally.

He's popped up on Lil Jon albums since that time, and nabbed a standout verse on Lil Scrappy's "Be Real," released during a time when Jon's BME label was on the ascent. He managed a minor solo snap hit with "Wuz Up." But just prior to the planned release of Bohagon's official debut in 2006, the world turned on its axis and he was deprioritized. He's spent the last decade or so releasing music that doesn't so much as puncture the air outside the South, give or take a regional music blog. His new tape Extra Gramz is unlikely to reverse the trend. But it does have some cool songs on it, including closer "Nothing On Us," a posse cut which sounds like a slight rework of "U.O.E.N.O."

Mixtape: Write My Wrongs
Producer: DJ Child

In the past two years, Chicago seemed to come online for the first time, as ease of internet access and a generation raised on social media made an underground network of clubs and hip-hop artists visible to the outside world. A similar thing happened in the Bay Area a few years earlier, although Livewire and the Mob Figaz didn't get quite the same level of media attention at the time. Nonetheless, the scene—rappers raised on millennial New York, in the same way Chicagoans were raised on mid-00s ATL—was creatively fertile. It culminated in the 2009 release of The Jacka's Tear Gas, still one of the decade's most underrated rap records.

At the time, Freeway was one of the few outsiders who recognized what was going on in the Bay. He appeared on Tear Gas, and he and Jack recorded an album together. Highway Robbery, due out November 12, will no doubt be a stronger release than Write My Wrongs, which features a mix of new and old songs and plenty of interludes. Nonetheless, there are some strong cuts throughout, particularly the aggro "Real Hood" remix, which finds the typically laconic Jacka rapping with more venom and energy than he has in the past few years: "Everybody feel that '91 octane/Everybody real still reppin' Pac name/In a drop stain, slappin' 'Never Be the Same'/Sellin out them thangs, first was hustlin' in the rain."

Mixtape: From Roaches To Rolex
Producer: Booda Beats

Waka's moved to the margins since his initial 2010 impact coincided with a major shift in the sound of Atlanta's hip-hop scene. From Roaches To Rolex felt like a move back towards the sound of some of his older tapes, which is both welcome, and evidence of how the world has shifted in a different direction since. It's a back to basics record, which is probably a smart move, even if it isn't especially novel. Booda Beats' incredible, mechanistic production on "Alpo" (named, of course, for Alpo Martinez) sounds like it was constructed by placing a microphone in an industrial metalworking plant.

Mixtape: AlmightySo
Producer:

AlmightySo is nowhere near on the level of Finally Rich or Back From the Dead, but it's a not-insubstantial step better than Bang 2, and will probably end up being ever-so-slightly underrated. Three tracks stand out in particular: the hypnotic "Hunchoz," the more anthemic "Blew My High," and the strange pop confection "Baby What's Wrong With You." (Keef has released more substantial songs than all three, but for whatever reason, they're just thrown out into the YouTube aether.)

"Baby Whats Wrong With You" is performed with the same incomprehensibility that has become his stock and trade, but with the slow spoken flow that makes the song feel more like a bedroom pop memory than the kind of visceral, peer-influenced street shit he became world famous for. The beat is a shimmering gem, and will no doubt lead some to argue that the production is again carrying the song. But with time, Sosa's part begins to feel more intentional and considered, if a bit slight in his wider catalog.

Mixtape: Crenshaw
Producer: Ralo

For all the noise around Nipsey's new tape, there have been remarkably few things actually written about it. (Well, a very small percentage of rap is actually written about in general, so perhaps that's par the course.) One of the parts of his argument that did seem counterproductive was his assertion that people who didn't share his background couldn't speak on it. If anything (we argued) more people entering into the fray (from any background) and willing to grapple with the challenges of contextualizing and covering his art would be a great benefit for the health of the genre as a whole.

Of course until the actual structures are in place to develop more writers, it's a little pie-in-the-sky. And it'll be too late for Crenshaw which, while not his best tape, has some joints worth checking out. Of particular note is "Go Long," which features a very Z-Ro Z-Ro chorus about how folks who aren't real should go long, as in, get away from him. Nipsey's verse captures a consistent part of argument throught this ordeal: "You ain't believe til I arrived at this shit/So hatin' n**** go long or you can die where you sit."

Mixtape: Drugstore Cowboy
Producer: Ty Dolla $ign

For years, Berner has been punching out of his weight class, pulling better beats and collaborations (sometimes at the same time). Drugstore Cowboy takes this to another level.

Basically, Drugstore Cowboy is the best possible Berner album, and his choice in both beats and collaborators is no doubt the envy of every aspiring rapper in the country, as well as a few already-successful ones. In a just world, these beats and hooks would be on a major label record with a less blank, more distinctive MC. If there's any justice, Cozmo—who produces the bulk of the tracks on this album—will start making beats for more dynamic performers in the very near future. At least we get to enjoy a Ty Dolla and Baby Bash collaboration, which feels like a strangely apropos tag team.

Overall, Drugstore Cowboy feels like someone's living out his rapper dreams, and doing so a lot better than some more successful artists.