5 years of Mixtape Madness

2015 has, so far, been an excellent year for UK music. Krept & Konan earnt their first top 10 hit with their collaboration with Jeremih on Freak of the Week, alongside entering the UK Albums Chart straight in at number 2 with their debut album The Long Way Home. Tinie Tempah made UK chart history, becoming the most successful UK rapper since charts began, beating the likes of Dizzee Rascal to the spot with six number one singles to date, most recently Not Letting Go featuring London born singer Jess Glynne. Oh and One Direction announced their ‘hiatus’ from music.

Alongside the above-mentioned UK triumphs, we at Mixtape Madness are also celebrating. On Tuesday 15^th September 2015, Mixtape Madness will have reached its fifth anniversary. Five years on since the site took off, we take a look back at our most memorable moments…

MADNESS MUSICAL INSIGHT SERIES

Fans interviewed artists for this series, and it proved a hit. One of our favourite interviews was by Joe Woodland who spoke to Fem Fel back in September 2011. Since then, Joe has gone on to become Head Chef at Ollie Dabbous’s hit West End restaurant Barnyard, which opened earlier this year.

THE WRETCHERCISE PROGRAM

Our pioneering Wretchercise program from December 2012 was ahead of its time. We came up with a tailor made infographic detailing some of the interesting data we found out about one of our favourite mixtapes, Wretch 32’s Wretchercise, which separated us from other download sites thanks to our innovative and resourceful way of utilising statistics. More and more artists started to contact us about advertising their mixtapes on our site because they were sold on our advanced method of using download records as a way to branch out to more and more listeners around the globe.

MIC MERKERS

December 2012 also marked the beginning of one of our most successful video series to date: Mic Merkers. Mixtape Madness favourite Rimzee absolutely smashed his freestyle, racking up over 286,000 views to date and becoming the first ever member of our ‘10k Club’, just weeks after dropping the video. Despite now being incarcerated, Rimzee will be releasing a new mixtape titled From the Inside Looking Out later this year.

SITE SHUTDOWNS

We have had our fair share of site shutdowns over the years, with certain mixtapes in such high demand that the site was temporarily frozen upon their release. Artists who caused madness on the site include Marvel, Potter Payper, J Spades, Nines, but one of the most memorable shutdowns was Mover’s 2013 release Ouch Chea Vol 2, which reached over 12,000 downloads.

MADABOUTMIXTAPES!!!

To ensure the UK underground could be shared as far an wide as possible, in 2013 Mixtape Madness brought MadAboutMixtapes to the world and haven’t looked back since!! With ground breaking tunes such as “Dem Boy Paigan” (Almost on 3 million views, YES we’re the 1st Urban UK music platform to hit a million views with an audio video, proving you don’t necessarily have to shoot a video to get yourself heard)

Over 16 million views to date, 28,000 subscribers on YouTube!! Currently the UK’s number one “Urban” (you know what I mean) music platform on Soundcloud and this Christmas we have an even BIGGER surprise for YOU!!!