Bad Mix: The 5 Most Disappointing Rap Mixtapes in Recent History

July 21, 2011 - 2:50 pm by Chris Yuscavage TWITTER

The Artist: Young Jeezy

The Mixtape: 2010's Trap or Die 2

Why It Didn't Live Up To The Hype: Trap or Die is, arguably, Jeezy's best release to date. While his debut album, Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101, is a certified classic at this point, it's Trap or Die that introduced Jizzle to most of the world and put the streets into the palm of his hands. Understandably, it was pretty much impossible for him to repeat that success of Trap or Die 2. And when you think about it, can you remember a single song from that mixtape with searching your iTunes library? No, right? Therefore, the sequel definitely did not live up to the original.

Disappointing Mixtapes 1

Disappointing Mixtapes 2

The Artist: T.I. The Mixtape: 2010's Fuck A Mixtape Why It Didn't Live Up To The Hype: Tip has never been much of a mixtape artist. That's mostly because he's never been one to freestyle or jump on beats that have already been used by other artists. As a result, Fuck A Mixtape was essentially a collection of tracks that weren't going to make the cut for T.I.'s seventh studio album, No Mercy. And when you consider that that project was easily one of Tip's worst, it's not hard to hear why the ironically-titled Fuck A Mixtape was an underwhelming listening experience.

Disappointing Mixtapes 3

The Artist: Pusha T The Mixtape: 2011's Fear of God Why It Didn't Live Up To The Hype: To be fair here, Fear of God is dope. Really dope, in fact. But, after years of us begging Pusha to release a solo project, we somehow expected even more from this. It was only released four months ago but it feels like longer than that—and with Pusha already pushing a new Fear of God 2 EP featuring a host of new tracks, it seems like he wasn't 100 percent happy with the way the original mixtape turned out, either. Like we said, this project was dope, but it wasn't as dope as it probably could have—or should have—been.

Disappointing Mixtapes 4

The Artist: Fabolous The Mixtape: 2011's The S.O.U.L. Tape Why It Didn't Live Up To The Hype: When Fab first start pushing this project, he said that it was inspired by Jay-Z's Blueprint album. That made us think it would be a super crazy 'tape filled with soul samples. That's not what we got, though. Fab had a good thing going with his There Is No Competition series and he probably would have been better off sticking to that script. We give him credit for trying to ride the wave of success after "You Be Killin' 'Em" took off, but this didn't really capitalize off of it.

Disappointing Mixtapes 5

The Artist: Game The Mixtape: 2010's Brake Lights Why It Didn't Live Up To The Hype: Game's next project, The R.E.D. Album, has seen its' fair share of starts and stops over the course of the last few years. So, if nothing else, Brake Lights was appropriately-titled. However, that's about all it had going for it. It had too many tracks, too many random features, and too many songs that sounded like throwaway cuts from his pending album. Fortunately, he returned in 2011 with another mixtape called Purp & Patron to redeem himself, but Brake Lights served as little more than a bump in the road when he dropped it.

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