The mixtape has always been an integral part of hip-hop culture. It has given artists an opportunity to circulate their name and their music throughout the scene. For the fourth year in a row, members of UCLA’s Hip Hop Congress have extended this opportunity to campus hip-hop artists.
The Bruin Mixtape Vol. 4 will be distributed at the mixtape release party today in Kerckhoff Grand Salon from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. The release party coincides with the beginning of Hip Hop appreciation month, and will feature live performances from some of the album’s artists.
The mixtape committee’s objective is to offer students a sampling of the hip-hop music they can find on their own campus or surrounding areas, with every track on the album featuring some contribution from a UCLA student or alumnus.
“You don’t see a lot of student hip-hop music on campus,” said Dana Diaz, a third-year anthropology student and member of the Bruin Mixtape committee. “We’re trying to build a community through hip-hop, and allow students to explore their talents.”
One such campus hip-hop group is No Insurance, a six-piece band that blends hip-hop elements with pop-punk influences and will also perform at Spring Sing later this year.
“We have hip-hop roots, but we’re not straight hip-hop,” said Jordan Calhoun, a fifth-year sociology student and guitarist and vocalist for the band. “We have a keyboardist, a drummer who plays in a hardcore band (and) we have a lot of weird influences that a normal hip-hop group wouldn’t have.”
The mixtape reflects not only the UCLA campus hip-hop scene, but also the Los Angeles hip-hop scene, which is often portrayed in a negative light because of the strong influence of gangster rap.
“The culture is alive on the West Coast, this is where the real underground is,” said alumnus Rene Sanchez, who performs on the mixtape under the pseudonym R-Sun.
“Los Angeles is always portrayed as a ganster rap scene, but there are so many different perspectives on everything here. I just want to give mine,” said Sanchez.
In order to find artists for the album, the mixtape committee contacted students and alumni asking for anyone who had a desire to appear on the mixtape.
“We put up signs, went out and fliered, went to classrooms, everything. We were looking for beats, songs, artists, singers, any kind of talent,” said Geneva Boyce, a third-year African American Studies student and member of the Bruin Mixtape committee. “We were actually scared that we weren’t going to get any submissions, but we ended up getting a huge variety.”
Because of the sheer number of submissions the committee received, there were initially concerns about making the album cohesive.
“As an album, you want the songs to match and flow,” said Evangeline Ignacio, a second-year communications student and member of the Bruin Mixtape Committee. “Our producer, DJ Addict, helped out by shuffling the songs around to make it sound like a real mixtape.”
Tuesday night’s performance will showcase a handful of artists featured on the Bruin Mixtape, including No Insurance, R-Sun and others. Each artist is slated to play a 15-minute set.
“There’s a wide variety of artists on the tape,” Ignacio said. “Some of them are well established bands that have played shows at the Key Club and other places, but others are amateurs who are just starting out. The important thing is they get exposure.”
In addition, some of the mixtapes distributed throughout the night will contain a golden ticket, entitling the bearer and a guest to VIP treatment at the Hip-Hop Explosion show featuring J. Cole later this month.
“The J. Cole event is pretty much the headline event of hip-hop appreciation month,” Ignacio said. “If you win, you’ll get VIP treatment, front row seats and a couple of things to be announced later.”
According to the artists, the mixtape and the hip-hop scene in general provide an outlet for students to convey their feelings and ideas in a creative way.
“If you just count the number of words in a hip-hop song, it outnumbers any other genre,” Sanchez said. “Hip-hop allows you to articulate yourself and say everything you want to say in a manner that is challenging and artistic.”