> If you use 50 as an example, he absolutely would not exist with his early mixtapes. You cannot release those on an official platform without running the risk

> If you use 50 as an example, he absolutely would not exist with his early mixtapes. You cannot release those on an official platform without running the risk of getting sued into oblivion. No label is going to back something like that. I also am not a fan of the curation process with a lot of these streaming services and definitely do not have any faith that you will be able to discover some unknown talented rapper in the way that you could with someone you've been buying shit from and you know they only carried good stuff. I agree with all of these; my gut response indicates that because of this the "underground" mixtape sources (e.g. torrents) are not going to disappear.