Raekwon, of the Wu-Tang Clan, has a new mixtape1 out, Unexpected Victory. Really enjoying it. Click through to download it.
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LIl’ Wayne pioneered the modern mixtape, releasing an incredible amount of material, sometimes as frequently as every two weeks, with a couple of important features:
- freely available on the internet
- frequently featuring uncleared samples, or even straight up rips of other beats
- slightly lowered expectations of quality and polish
Essentially, mixtapes have become an outlet for rappers to release experimental or new material direct to fans for free as a means of building buzz.
This particular mixtape is pretty high quality, featuring mostly original production and lots of guest appearances. Almost anyone other than Raekwon would have just released this as an album. ↩