Sunday, July 18, 2004

A Love Affair

The first time I can remember hearing Hip Hop was in 1988. I stole a tape out of the school bag which belonged to a kid who was a friend only in the very loosest of terms and who often bullied me at school.
I slipped the unmarked (clear plastic with metal side panels within) tape in to my small Sharp radio cassette player when I was at home later that same day without considering that my life was about to reach a defining moment - so far unequalled in it's importance.


Power - It starts with P like Pussy.
She knows she's got it, she doesn't wear it does she?
Spending your cash,
leaving you in the trash,
while your little head's thinking they're gone in a dash.
They Got It, Know It, that's why they Show It,
The Power of Sex.
If man could overthrow it - he'd be rich in a day!
No Way,
We Get Rich, Hard, give it away.
We're weak and as we speak,
the Girls are hawking,
sizin' me up straight out as I'm talking.
You gotta have control if you want the goal,
I don't wanna be alone - like Stallone
so I keep my mind thinking bout the green
and stop dwelling on the in-between.
I got Power!

Ice T and his Power Album came bumping out of my speakers and I was hooked.
In June 2003 a friend of mine explained to me what a mixtape was. I didn't know before then what I'd been missing. I hadn't realised that so much more hip hop music was available than what was offered by HMV and Virgin Megastores. Music that wouldn't get near a chart-show for months. Music that may never be released. Music from artists without a contract. Battle rhymes and freestyles. Interviews. Comedy. And more.
Mixtapes opened the door fully to the world of hip hop to me and I found there were hundreds every month to be heard.
I found several places on the web where I could buy mixtapes and I tasked myself with keeping up to date with the latest releases and enjoying more new hip hop music than I'd got time to listen to. I began www.jah.clara.net at the beginning of 2004 as a way to make a record of the latest mixtapes with their release dates. The theory is that the websites that sell mixtapes do not always make it clear how old or new a mixtape might be and only by visiting the sites very regularly does this become apparent . So I created a mixtape page at the end of 2003.
I visit hip hop mixtape vendors on the web (several) on a daily basis and add the details of new hip hop mixtapes to the mixtape page. I provide a track list and links to the sites that sell the new mixtapes, but I don't display the artwork/sticker images as they slow down the flow of information.
A side-effect of this process is that I have a record of the websites which regularly get new hip hop mixtapes before the rest and which ones get exclusives that other sites don't have available when new.
The main purpose of the mixtape page is this:
If you want to know what new hip hop mixtapes became available today (or on any day since the beginning of 2004) then these mixtape pages will tell you!