Mixtape | Never Play By The Rules

Mixtapes have an out-sized role in the emergence of hip hop around the world. Before radio play, the internet, and social media, there were mixtapes. No matter where you lived, you could pop a cassette into a tape deck, and be transported to a party halfway around the world. DJs were taste makers, trendsetters and creators of the sound that became the biggest musical genre on the planet. A meteoric rise for an art form not yet 50 years old. The importance of mixtapes goes well beyond the tapes themselves. Mixtapes were a form of currency. A signifier that you were In-The-Know and had your ear to the streets. A skeleton key to the underground. The culture was too strong to be stopped, and the artists were too talented to be ignored - so they turned the sub-culture into the mainstream, and made hip hop what it is today.

Produced by Mercury Studios and Saboteur in association with Def Jam Recordings, Mixtape tells the story of mixtape culture and its role in spreading hip-hop around the world. This is a film about the outlaw DJs who, for the love of the music, turned a criminal enterprise into a creative and commercial backbone of the music business. Directed and produced by Omar Acosta (Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives), the film features music icons A$AP Rocky, Brucie B, Bun B, CeeLo, DJ Clue, DJ Drama, DJ Whoo Kid, Doo Wop, Fat Joe, Funkmaster Flex, Jadakiss, Jeezy, Kid Capri, KRS-One, Lil Wayne, Angie Martinez, Mister Cee, Tony Touch, 2 Chainz and more. Nick Quested, David Kennedy, “Mix Tape King” Tony Touch and Daniel Seliger produce, alongside executive producers Paul Rosenberg and Barak Moffit.

Def Jam Recordings will also release a new soundtrack/mixtape, and the movie will feature a vérité of the soundtrack recording sessions.

Now streaming on Paramount+