Look, I know it can be hard in this day and age to take your mind off pseudo-surprise releases, retail playlists, and visual albums, but please try to show some gratitude for the mixtape format. Mixtapes have always been there for you, even when you haven’t been there for them. Mixtapes understand when you’re happy, when you’re sad. When you tried to grab “name your price” music on Bandcamp for free and the checkout screen shamed you into paying $1 instead? Mixtapes supported you through that.
You should therefore be grateful that Boston rapper Cousin Stizz is ready to bring you back to the light side with a new mixtape called One Night Only. Stizz has graciously given you a month to repent for your callous neglect: the project drops May 12 through RCA (glad to see someone still respects the tape).
One Night Only is a follow-up to the rapper’s 2016 release MONDA, which was good enough to include on our list of favorite mixtapes from July 2016 (which, you’d do well to note, is the only format reliable enough to command a monthly TMT column). If that’s still not enough for you (it never is, is it?), Stizz has also invited you to listen to his new song “Headlock” featuring Offset of Migos. I’m not sure you deserve it, but I’ll let you be the judge of your own character by embedding the track below on the honor system. Just remember: love thy mixtape.