Nearly every rapper releases a mixtape before gaining popularity, right? At least that's what Kendrick Lamar did at 19. From Compton, California, young Kendrick puts a rare flow on this tape. His demo CD, Hub City Threat, Minor of the Year, got him to Top Dawg Entertainment. Here, he has been releasing mixtapes for a few years.
On this mixtape, young Kendrick raps to beats that were popular from the 80s-2007, such as Jay-Z's "Show Me What You Got", Notorious B.I.G's "Who Shot Ya", Slum Village's "Players" as a tribute to late producer J-Dilla, and Andre 3000's "Prototype". Here, all the songs features a Lil Wayne copycat flow, but the mixtape gets Kendrick to rap to some killer old skool/new skool beats. Luckily, to make it all better, features come with Jay Rock, EmJae, Punch, and more. During the mixtape, a story kind of starts to build up as you listen to the mixtape from scratch, where skits before the song plays come up. On the cover, it has a byline that says "In the next 26 tracks, you'll learn about the streets", and this is where you know that a story builds up. There are interviews in the middle of the mixtape with fellow DJ, DJ Dave about his flows, lyrics and life.
Overall, this mixtape is a real classic mixtape with killer classic beats, which got Kendrick to where he is now.
