Written By Darcwonn
Dead End Hip Hop is an Atlanta based collective of music lovers. They are known for their off-beat, hilarious diatribes and classic arguments have caused a growth in their audience. Even hip hop luminaries like Brother Ali and Chris Martin of Kid and Play are huge fans.
Using their positive buzz and influence, they compiled a gathering of tracks to represent what they love about hip hop. Picked from 300 potential tracks, DEHH Approved: The Mixtape Volume 1 is a concise representation of the type of hip hop that impressed them.
Please note that most of these artists are unfamiliar to anybody that doesn’t scour the recesses of the internet and blog sites to get their music. Then again, that aspect is the joy of this mixtape. Listening to pure unknowns drop heat like NOVA does on “W.E.E.D.,” Ezko on “LGNDRY,” and Bishop Nehru on “Light Leak$” only excites the true hip hop head of the undiscovered talent that exists out there. Even the underground’s more known and rising (Marv Won, Clear Soul Forces, Fattfather) do what they do best: bring heat. Hence, one can easily summarize that the heat on this mixtape is pretty concentrated.
The only true complaint someone could have is that the music stays in one type of strain: lyrical bangers. While there are some tracks that are much more experimental (Adding Machine’s “New World Order”) and out there (IZ Real with the off-beat realness of “Porno Flow”), all of the tracks consist of these two crucial things: dope beats and dope lyrics. There won’t be any commercial tracks or club bangers. There won’t be any trap-going-ham coonery that people value nowadays, either. Honestly, if you don’t want beats and rhymes this mixtape isn’t for you.
With DEHH Approved: The Mixtape Volume 1, it is easy to see why so many people love their videos. Their ear for music can be easily be trusted. To take the next volume to another level, they could even have the tracks mixed and blended. Then again, that is a cosmetic technicality. In the end, a brand that many of us can trust dropped a mixtape that reconfirmed why they earned our faith in the first place.
“There won’t be any commercial tracks or club bangers. There won’t be any trap-going-ham coonery that people value nowadays, either. Honestly, if you don’t want beats and rhymes this mixtape isn’t for you.”
Ok that was a nice touch, dope mixtape guys
i enjoyed the mixtape good job to the crew for finding them and to the artists for bringing the heat!
Being that I wrote the review, I must say that I am excited for the next installment. Different artists with a mixtape blending and cutting? It will definitely be official.