From Chicago, to Los Angeles, to Long Island, different vibes come together to create one unison sound. Different collaborations, to the talk of drugs, love and partying, these three artists bring it all. All but one shared on SoundCloud, they all have one thing in common. That thing is their love for creating music, and it is all free music to be exact.

If you are thrown off, let me explain. This month I’m discussing my favorite mixtapes of this decade. Starting with Hoodie Allen’s mixtape “Leap Year,” to Chance The Rapper’s “Acid Rap,” and who I consider ‘my babes,’ The Neighbourhood’s “#00000 #fffff.” All stem from different roots, but they all come together with only one thing in common; its main genre.

Starting in 2011, Hoodie released his mixtape “Leap Year” to only SoundCloud. Nobody knew who he was, I mean he was a college student who was working for Google at the time. He gained some fans through SoundCloud but his popularity didn’t really grow until after he released “No Interruption” in 2012. Hoodie keeps a pop-rap tone throughout his songs. Barely any of them have a Tyler The Creator feel, meaning not nearly as vulgar as something Tyler would put out. Allen’s message is more light hearted and is a lot less hard hitting than every other mixtape in this article.

Hoodie, along with Chance aren’t your usual rappers. They both have nice upbringings, and rap more about love and heartbreak over anything else. In Chance’s 2013 mixtape “Acid Rap” he begins it off on a positive note. Being the Taylor Swift of rap, this guy has just about every rapper he knows on this first track, “Good Ass Intro.” Starting off with the female harmonies of Noname Gypsy leading into a soulful beat. Chance leaves lyrics for you discuss at two a.m. when you cannot sleep, to say the least.

Both “Leap Year” and “Acid Rap” have a collection of different messages, with mainly up and coming artists on different tracks. Hoodie has Tayyib Ali, while Chance has Noname and BB The Chicago Kid. However, they both have more popular artists such as Kanye West on “Good Ass Intro” and Childish Gambino on “Favorite Song.” Gambino is iconic, Donald Glover does everything, and well, Kanye is Kanye. I will never love Kanye as much as Kanye loves Kanye.

Now, I’ll control myself but The Neighbourhood people, they are my everything, as shown last month. Three words: Jesse Rutherford’s voice. This man has the voice of a sensual god and definitely does not disappoint in “#00000 #fffff.”Similar to the other mixtapes, this one is based on love, but also on regret. He regrets ever falling in love with his cheating ex girlfriend, Anabel Englund, but also misses her. On the mixtape, the band brings Cassie Veggies, a decently popular artist and 4e productions on the track “Jealou$y,” singer and rapper Raury on “Warm” and YG on “Dangerous.” Similar to “Wiped Out!” sounds of the beach are portrayed, especially in “Warm.”

I overall can’t say any songs from these mixtapes remind me of others but Chance and Rutherford both bring up smoking weed in their songs, especially in “Chain Smoker” and “When I get back” featuring G-Eazy.

Lastly, there is always going to be one song that makes me emotionally unstable. For The Neighbourhood it’s “Warm” or “Lurk,” both for different reasons, for Chance The Rapper it’s “Everybody’s Somebody’s” and for Hoodie Allen it’s “Push You Away.” Deep meaning and songs with not much synthesizer make me emotionally drained.
There we are, the best of the best, in the mind of a sixteen year old girl. Hopefully you give them all a listen if you haven’t already, because there is so much more talent behind Drake. To me, Drake will never be able to meet the standards of these guys, autotune and ghost writers only go so far.