mixtape

noun

mix·​tape ˈmiks-ˌtāp 

variants or less commonly mix tape

plural mixtapes also mix tapes

1

: a noncommercial compilation of songs copied (as onto a cassette tape or a CD) from various sources

In high school, I'd be making mixtapes for friends and girls instead of doing my homework, spending hours perfecting how a Smiths song and Joy Division song and Pixies song would convey the way I feel.

—Aaron Axelsen, quoted at SFGate.com

Writers like Nick Hornby have imbued the cassette tape with considerable romance, in particular the mix tape created for a loved one. In practice, these were often recorded directly from the radio, requiring your typical suburban suitor to sit around for hours on end, waiting for the desired track to appear.

—Richard Glover

2

: an album that is usually recorded and distributed without the involvement of a record label

The mixtape is an unofficial release. It might be tied to an imprint or a label, but it doesn't necessarily appear in stores. In fact, most of them can be purchased only on the streets, at the clubs, from the trunks of cars or from the artists themselves.

—Lance Scott Walker

Long before rap got any radio love, mixtapes were the main form of distribution, the currency that kept everything in rotation as the culture evolved.

—Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael

High-fidelity and laden with hits, So Far Gone had the sheen of a professional studio album, and it popularized the idea of mixtapes as low-pressure showcases for burgeoning artists.

—Jonah Bromwich

Examples of mixtape in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

There has been no full-length project since his 2023 mixtape London’s Saviour, just a relentless streak of loosies. —Kieran Press-Reynolds, Pitchfork, 3 Sep. 2025

Likewise, Smart Downloads automatically downloads music to your device for offline play whenever you’re connected to Wi-Fi, giving you a catalog of 500 songs to keep your offline mixtape and music playlists fresh. —PC Magazine, 2 Sep. 2025

Just like the web player, the experience felt plucked from the early-aughts days of Limewire downloads and the detailed labor of CD and cassette mixtapes. —Maya Georgi, Rolling Stone, 28 Aug. 2025

Between his only two albums, actually, as all of the other musical projects he’s released during his career have been marketed as mixtapes. —Hugh McIntyre, Forbes.com, 27 Aug. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1985, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for mixtape

• agape
• escape
• landscape
• lenape
• reshape
• seascape
• soundscape
• ape
• cape
• crape
• crepe
• drape