DJ Drama and a few other notable deejays revolutionized the music industry with mixtapes. In 2004, DJ Drama hosted Young Jeezy’s “Trap or Die” mixtape and set the stage for artists and deejays to build powerful brands without the help of major record labels. DJ Drama recently sat down with rolling out magazine for an interview that will be featured on an upcoming cover. During our discussion, DJ Drama revealed how mixtapes changed hip-hop. –amir shaw
“In 2011 there is no argument across the board on any side of the industry on how important mixtapes are. If you look at any of the recent hip-hop stars, they have all released mixtapes at some point in their careers. When I got raided in 2007, we started to really see a decline in record sales. The thing that always stands out to me about that year is that the mixtape game got dry and there weren’t many movements. So now here we are years later and artists are opting out of albums just to put out mixtures. It puts them in a good position to set up for an album and go on the road and get paid from shows. You know we have a whole generation of artists that consistently tour off of mixtapes and no albums.”
