As the remaining minutes of 2007 are suddenly ticking off way too fast for comfort (we hardly knew ye, etc.), the year-end lists are splintering into the minutiae of genre and sub-genre and even format, and
New York's list of the ten best hip-hop mixtapes of the year, compiled by dependable rap (and otherwise) crit Chris Ryan in the "the year [mixtapes] were nearly broken" by tape impresario DJ Drama's bust by the feds at the beginning of the year, is a nice change-of-Christmas-shopping-list from the Year-End Analysis routine. Having only heard five of them, I can't exactly start asking "the whaaaa?" or talking shit about some Stack Bundles (R.I.P.) tape I've never laid ears on. So though I can vouch for the quality of, say, No. 8 pick
Geek'd Up Music by Fabo and Young Dro (and I'm pretty sure dead relatives have heard
Da Drought 3 at this point), perhaps members of the peanut gallery who've made multiple trips to their local mixtape spot this year can offer independent assessment on these ten.
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