Speaker: Hip Hop is in the Building

I'm not going into some long-winded spiel about how stale rap and Hip Hop is right now as that's the diatribe du jour that's been on repeat for about 6 months now, thanks to your boy Nas. But, instead here's a bit of respite from the trite/tired Hip Hop is Dead cliches that have been provided by blogs, websites, mags and even myself at times.

I think emcees and rappers are starting to get the picture. Major record labels and their multi-million dollar marketing budgets are not going to jolt fans out of their album-copping hibernation; neither are pre-orchestrated or spontaneous beefs that spur from nothing more than a passing whim. What's going to get people excited about Hip Hop again is the same thing that got people excited a decade ago or two decades ago: quality music. A recent trend has emerged on the net; one that is pleasing to my taste and my slim pockets. Emcees are leaking their own music and not just the crap were they throw a bunch of feckless rhymes together and say something along the lines of "what do you expect, it's just a freestyle" but they're actually putting out tracks of considerable substance. And the ironic thing is that the person who started this trend is none other then the one who underground enthusiasts consider to be the anti-christ of all that is Hip Hop, Lil Wayne. However, I'm not going to go down that route as that's another discussion for another day on another site. With that said, below you'll find some links for FREE mixtapes of artists who leaked their own music that's actually...well, kind of dope.

SkyZoo-The Cornerstore Classic