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

Kush + Orange Juice 2 came less than a year after Wiz Owens, a mixtape that was primarily done in collaboration with Sledgren. —Armon Sadler, VIBE.com, 17 June 2025

Alphonse Pierre’s Off the Dome column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, scenes, snippets, movies, Meek Mill tweets, fashion trends—and anything else that catches his attention. —Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 30 May 2025

His decade-long history of arrests has not seemed to slow his productivity as YoungBoy has released numerous albums and mixtapes while incarcerated or under legal restrictions. —Gabe Whisnant, MSNBC Newsweek, 28 May 2025

With frequent interjections from DJ Swamp Izzo, the album is designed to aesthetically mimic the ‘00s mixtapes that Izzo used to host for artists like Young Thug a decade ago. —Hazlitt, 28 May 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