Hip-Hop's Biggest Under the Radar Superstar It drives a stream of guaranteed revenueР’В that offsets falling music sales and appears almost to beР’В a 'gift' to fans, as if the artist is saying 'screw the system, I'm just going to give this to you now,' despite the fact that there'sР’В a carefully orchestrated machine working behind the scenes that spent hours and hours planning the 'surprise' release, often in coordination with the label. Recent examples from BeyoncР“В©, Kanye West, Rihanna and others have shown that partnering with streaming services for 'exclusive' album releases-Logic's new mixtape was temporarily an Apple Music exclusive-is lucrative business for the artist and record labels. It's impossible to deny the surprise (or almost surprise) release phenomenon now-in many ways, it's become the new standard. We might think of them as 'free' releases, but whether fans are paying for it via a subscription to Apple Music or advertisers are paying to run ads next to it on Spotify/YouTube etc.,Р’В there's very real money behind every listen of Bobby Tarantino. The same can be said for Logic's Bobby Tarantino, a complete project structured very much like an album. Do you consider Chance The Rapper's Coloring Book a mixtape? Despite the fact that it's one of the best hip-hop albums of the past fiveР’В years, Chance maintains it's not an album. Mixtapes in 2016 have,Р’В for all intents andР’В purposes, become albums and it seems the 'mixtape' tag is being used both as a marketing ploy and a way forР’В the artist and label to say, 'Well, it was only a mixtape,' if the project were to flop. A mixtape, as old school heads know it, was a combination of exclusives, freestyles, mashed up tracksР’В and a lot of DJ Clue talking over the music. The numbers for Bobby TarantinoР’В speak to a few different things: What's a 'Mixtape'?Р”Р„ 'mixtape' in 2016 is quite a bit different than it was in the early days of the web or pre-internet. The tapeР’В follows Logic's last studio album The Incredible True Story,Р’В which was released in November 2015 and had impressive first-week sales of 135k.

Logic mixtapes not on spotify