With a daunting cascade of releases spewing from the likes of DatPiff, LiveMixtapes, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud, it can be difficult to keep up with the overbearing yet increasingly vital mixtape game. In this column, we aim to immerse ourselves in this hyper-prolific world and share our favorite releases each month. The focus will primarily be on rap mixtapes — loosely defined here as free (or sometimes free-to-stream) digital releases — but we’ll keep things loose enough to branch out if/when we feel it necessary. (Check out last month’s installment here.)
Curren$y & Alchemist - The Carrollton Heist
Like most, if not all, Curren$y mixtapes, The Carrollton Heist, despite its allusive title and artwork, fails to deliver anything substantial in terms of narrative. Although Spitta is always either waking up or sitting down, weed smell ever present, his nasally mellifluous drawl cuts reliably through the fog, lending an occasionally beguiling edge to the hooks and punchlines of his Jet Life imaginary. Any stories are strictly past-tense, striking a nostalgic chord perfectly suited to The Alchemist’s even-textured, edifying blend of noirish crimejazz tension (“Black Rally Stripes”), bittersweet Shaolin soul (“Smoking In The Rain”), and shimmering jazz-funk synthesizer (“Inspiration”). A sometime member of DJ Muggs’s Soul Assassins collective, Al’s connections and credentials smuggle him unceremoniously close to hip-hop royalty. The recent successes of Piñata and Days With Dr. Yen Lo suggest a ready desire for exactly this sort of robust and well-schooled conservatism, “crafted by the masters, to be played on the block/ In the project hallways of secluded mansions.”