Evil Dee Comes on, Kicks It

Thaformula.com, a site you can always count on for the best hip-hop interviews around, just posted a new one with our good friend Evil Dee. Here's an excerpt on the evolution of the mixtape:

...ThaFormula.com - Now I got to talk to you about the mixtape problem happening now. You being in New York where all the dopest producers came from, what happened, and why the hell did every DJ start screaming on CD's?

Evil Dee - First I'ma tell you my history with the mixtape thing. I was making mixtapes since '88 or '89. Now my thing uh I'ma tell you why I started talking on my mixtapes. What happened was I used to do parties and I would you know make my tapes at the parties. What happened was I would sell my tapes and I went to the park once and this guy was playing my tape. So you know how you hear your joint and you go "yo who made that?" he was like "I made that," and I sat there and heard like three mixes I did and I'm like "no I made that!" He was like "prove it." I couldn't prove it so I decided that on my tapes I would just be like "Evil Dee is on the mix, come on kick it," and that's how that whole thing started. Now ok with like myself, I did my i.d. on my tape I do it once, I don't shout out nobody who you don't know. Now what happened was, you had S&S, Ron G, Doo Wop, and other cats come out and what they would do is like, S&S took it to another level where instead of being on some "It's S&S in full effect," he was just "YAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYYAYAYA" So S&S was the first cat I heard yelling on his tapes. S&S was also one of the first cats that I seen take it from skills to exclusives. I used to make my mixtape to show that I was nice as a DJ. f**k an exclusive. Any idiot can make an exclusive mixtape. My mother can make an excusive mixtape. I'm not saying she's an idiot, but you know. The whole thing with the mixtape is it was to show the DJ's skills. What happened was it went from that to exclusives and then DJ Clue was the first person that I seen put it on a CD. So Clue took it to the digital revolution...