Mixtape & Blog Era

Free music, fast fame

Around 2009, rap blogs and mixtape sites like DatPiff became the new radio. Artists released full-length projects for free, fans downloaded them by the millions, and labels followed the numbers. Drake's So Far Gone mixtape spun off "Best I Ever Had" and a record deal. Wiz Khalifa, J. Cole, Mac Miller and Big K.R.I.T. built fan bases one free download at a time.

Kanye's G.O.O.D. Fridays

In 2010, Kanye West gave away a new song every Friday, and those songs rolled into My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, one of the most acclaimed albums of the decade. Drake's Take Care (2011) cemented the moody, R&B-leaning sound he built with producer Noah "40" Shebib.

Crews and cults

In Los Angeles, Odd Future spread through Tumblr and self-released tapes, launching Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt. Harlem's A$AP Rocky mixed Houston and Memphis influences on LiveLoveA$AP. Top Dawg Entertainment's Kendrick Lamar went from the independent Section.80 to good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012) and To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), and in 2018 became the first rapper to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

From downloads to streams

Chance the Rapper's Acid Rap (2013) was free, and his 2016 project Coloring Book became the first streaming-only album to win a Grammy. El-P and Killer Mike's Run the Jewels gave away their albums too, and Freddie Gibbs and Madlib's Piñata showed the underground still had its own lane. By the late 2010s, streaming replaced the free mixtape, and SoundCloud became the next launchpad.