mixtapes and pre-album artist development....

[LyRiCaL_G]

yo seer i am not sure where this topic really fits so imma let it explore outbound!

oh and yo this is not a "hiphop is dead" thread, this is just my thoughts on some shit like the subject explains...

anyways yo i just wanted to share some of my thoughts with y'all about mixtapes/ early artist development and so on.....

its like this, these days niggaz be releasing so much mixtapes and spitting so many verses, banging out so many joints, grinding hard, yet 2-3 years down the line, aint no album out...

back in the day, niggaz who were dropping there first album, were meant to be raw, not fully polished, they could still make hits, but they were dropping shit that was meant to be released at the time they were dropping albums..and because of that there was alot more origninality because everyone had there own styles, instead of tryna be one poster or blueprint..today its alot mo difficult for a cat(as in a hiphop listener) to say, "yo this nigga is ahead of his time" because the game is so generic....

i understand mixtapes are there to help niggaz get deals and create buzz but alot of these niggaz who have deals are really spitting shit on mixtapes and then the shit they spit on albums aint touching the shit they have on there mixtapes.....do not get me wrong, mixtapes are not always bad but as it can help rappers improve and understand music more and so on....but is that not something we as the listener should notice through progression on albums???.....

imma give you an example....

dr dre and the way he works today to how he use to work.....today he is known to really make sure artists are "ready" before they drop, polished, ironed out, cleaned up, nigga makes them work 2-3 years on a 200 joints which most of them get rejected....now back in the day with a nigga like snoop....believe me, they worked hard but that was not the case...

let me start with snoop dogg..........remember how snoop use to spit joints back back in the day when he was young....dre didnt do no REAL artist development on his debut album. in comparison to how he does shit today...snoop was RAW.......only thing they did was vibe....that is how a new young nigga is supposed to be when he comes into the game...damn, dre beats were fly back then and just because a nigga raw, does not mean he cannot make hits or rip a beat to threads....who misses new cats sounding raw over a superbeat?...a young snoop to a current snoop dogg is vey different but his career has lasted soo long because he has always been what he was suppose to be...he never really wasted his time when he was young on making hella mixtapes....nigga evolved as a artist and his understanding of music has gotten better with experience and years and we as the listener have been through and witnessed this with him....i am in no way saying snoop today is better than he was when he was young and raw...because that would be stupid....but if y'all think snoop is not a more polished and artistic today....well then we agree to disagree...its like this......snoop young could still make hits....so can snoop today but nobody expected a raw snoop to make a beautiful....which is great, because snoop did that later in his career...and this is how he is a living legend today...nigga progresses, because he was not washed up and tired before his first album even dropped....

another example.........eminem........dre did not spend years "working" on eminem before slim shady lp dropped....eminem was pretty raw then....even MMLP showed progression and not until eminem show was eminem fully polished as an artist....not a eminem show  fan but i can appreciate his progression.....that was because nigga didnt spend 3 years getting "molded" into this poster boy generic rapper and shit was done as expected....again eminem is what he is for his time....a younger eminem was raw....eg....guilty conscience...a older eminem...."mokingbird" or "loose yourself".....dope tracks....but i guarentee you this, if dre had worked on eminen for so long and made him release a billiion mixtapes before his album dropped....rejected a billion joints before his album dropped and made him wait 3 years before his first album, homie would have been nuttin as to what he has become.....was it not dope to hear cats spittin raw lyrics over a guilty conscience beat?....

now comes the new dre and the new cats....the likes of 50 cent and game both have had huge success under dres wing and do not get me wrong, i understand 50 did alot before getting with dre....but these niggaz released so much shit before there albums dropped today they only really get energy and shit to speak about through controversy.....beefs.....and these niggaz only a few albums deep.........i mean games first album was the documentary....do not get me wrong....the album is hella dope.....but its TOOOO polished for a first album mang.....to me it should have been the doctors advocate first (ironically game sound alot more raw on this album without dre influence) and than the documentary should have been the follow up....that aint natural progression.....imma game fan and i like his music, but these niggaz are having to work to hard on becoming a "same" rapper...rather than all begin unique....which comes from natural progression rather than being molded into the same nigga....

now i hope in bishop laments case dre will let the nigga be who he is....because i do not know about you, but i would love to see someone spit raw and still make a hit over a tidy dre banger....but will this really happen....i doubt it.....bishop will be sooo deep into his own career even before his first album comes out we as the listeners will miss soo much and we will again listen to unnatural polished up shit for a first album.....do not get me wrong, i think bishop will release heat....but i would like to hear niggaz who can release bangers every 18 months and still be relavent 5-10 years from now rather than a nigga who is done after 2-3 albums because his career was played out behind the scenes in mixtapes and rejected album tracks....

i am not sure if im making my point fully clear, maybe a cat like tanj or jrome can put my words into a more understandable manner, but if y'all kinda understand, im just saying tooo much mixtapes and artist development is not always good....its can be actually alot worse as it takes away a niggaz originality....and all rappers we hear become the same...

drop y'all thoughts....and my bad about the long post!

peace!

[herpes]

uppin this for the time being, b/c it mad late an i got work in the mouring.  But i will read it 2morrow after work and drop my 2 cents.  B/c even the mix-tape game has changed big time in the past few years.

[LyRiCaL_G]

^^haha props playa!

[QuietTruth]

Well I can tell you this, mixtapes are about more than 50 times better than anything coming out, any single or any album. They come non stop and they for the streets, all I listen to is mixtapes. That's my life line in Hip Hop right there. I personally don't think there's buzz for albums compared to these mixtape any more. Look at Styles P, nobody check for that nigga compared to Lil' Wayne, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, Paul Wall, T.I. and shit. Nobody heard his album coming up it just appeared, ya'll feel me word?

Mixtapes keep everything hood. They make music and they ain't makin 200,000,0000 dollars off it. In mixtapes you don't hear money and glamour in the tracks.

My opinion...

[herpes]

Dope post, I think a lot of rappers are saving there raw, street tracks, and all around better music on mix tapes b/c the game is mad differet then it was just 10-15 years ago.  10-15 years ago, you just put out a couple of tracks on mix-tapes b/c you were just trying to get your name out there.  And if you were dope the A&R's went crazy over you and record labels would try and sign you.  And back then if you were dope record labels would of found a way to get your album out and most of the time you were able to make music that you wanted to make.  Now its not like.  The record labels are so affraid of flops and what not, that no matter how dope you are there is no guarantee you will ever get a album out.  So rappers are pretty much forced to put out mix-tape after mix-tape with there best music to keep there name out there.  They have to put out there best music to remind people they are still dope.  So when they do eventually put a album out they already have released there best music and made a few bucks off mix-tapes.  And they have already dealt with the bull shit politics of the game.  So when they eventually do drop a album some of that hunger is already gone.  And also when they do drop a album, the labels are so affraid of flops they wont let you do your music.

[Jip]

being a good rapper is different to being a good songwriter

rappers will release mixtapes all day long and they will be good, but when they sit down to make an album, its different

the label decides what gets released, and they dont wanna release mixtapes

[LyRiCaL_G]

Well I can tell you this, mixtapes are about more than 50 times better than anything coming out, any single or any album. They come non stop and they for the streets, all I listen to is mixtapes. That's my life line in Hip Hop right there. I personally don't think there's buzz for albums compared to these mixtape any more. Look at Styles P, nobody check for that nigga compared to Lil' Wayne, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, Paul Wall, T.I. and shit. Nobody heard his album coming up it just appeared, ya'll feel me word?

Mixtapes keep everything hood. They make music and they ain't makin 200,000,0000 dollars off it. In mixtapes you don't hear money and glamour in the tracks.

My opinion...

word i aint dissin mixtapes as in they wack, i just do not beleive niggaz should be wasted on them....niggaz can be washed up before they even release an album now, that would not happen before....yeah mixtapes are cool and shit but albums are 100% music.....yes they are not always 100% hood but that aint no problem if its banging right?.....back in the day, an album had to  have 10-14 tracks without a having to press the skip button....today all you need is a hit and a decent follow up so the rest of the album you can pretty much do what you want anyway......another reason i think we have so many fillers on an album now is because of mixtapes...niggaz already said what they wanna say before the album dropped!


i def agree about you saying we do not hear as much glamour and money on a mixtape as we do on albums, but to be truthful dawg, i aint trippin about that, aslong as its real...i do not care if we hear some gloating...everyone does it....as long as its not overdone(gunit banks/yayo)....

peace

[LyRiCaL_G]

by the way, a tru rapper will be judged by the material they release on there albums, not mixtapes...all the greats have proven they are greats on there albums, not mixtapes....so no matter how good a writer you may be, you have to incorporate that into your actual music and albums, thats when one wil truely be appreciated nephew!

[LyRiCaL_G]

Dope post, I think a lot of rappers are saving there raw, street tracks, and all around better music on mix tapes b/c the game is mad differet then it was just 10-15 years ago.  10-15 years ago, you just put out a couple of tracks on mix-tapes b/c you were just trying to get your name out there.  And if you were dope the A&R's went crazy over you and record labels would try and sign you.  And back then if you were dope record labels would of found a way to get your album out and most of the time you were able to make music that you wanted to make.  Now its not like.  The record labels are so affraid of flops and what not, that no matter how dope you are there is no guarantee you will ever get a album out.  So rappers are pretty much forced to put out mix-tape after mix-tape with there best music to keep there name out there.  They have to put out there best music to remind people they are still dope.  So when they do eventually put a album out they already have released there best music and made a few bucks off mix-tapes.  And they have already dealt with the bull shit politics of the game.  So when they eventually do drop a album some of that hunger is already gone.  And also when they do drop a album, the labels are so affraid of flops they wont let you do your music.

word, today you could be signed in 2007, release 5 mixtapes, come 2010-2011....you get dropped, career over because they afraid to take a chance unlike before....i guess that is some what to do with piracy....and the whole strive for "perfection".....but like i think alot of "perfection" is being missed because less risks are being taken