The Catch-Up: The Max-Approved Mixtape

 

This week would normally be about the time that I'd unleash a new episode of the Max-Approved Mixtape upon everybody. I'm sure you can tell by my general tone that those plans have changed - there will be something, sure, but we'll talk about that later in the week. For now, I wanted to talk about the series as a whole, if you don't mind.

For the uninitiated, the Max-Approved Mixtape is a podcast series from the ongoing RandoMax Radio concern, a side project that began life as a collection of articles spotlighting individual songs that I love that I used as a way to stave off the inevitable burnout that comes from running a blog where you tackle a full album for each post. (I'm nothing if not honest.) Like the Producers Guild series, I've since updated the Max-Approved Mixtape for a new audience, turning it into a mix show where each episode features ten hip hop tracks approved by me (hi, I'm Max), all taken from any point in time I feel like listening to at that very moment. A lot of mixes of this nature focus squarely on new shit, which is all well and good, but there's a lot more older good stuff than there is new, and I wanted to share the tracks I enjoy that I feel deserve a much wider following.

Sadly, the conversion into a podcast format meant sacrificing the written portion, which works for me because it allows me the freedom to focus more on the song selection for these episodes, which in turn saves the writing for actual reviews and other things that interest me (and, hopefully, you two as well). The original articles can still be found on the site, of course - in fact, the first four episodes are considered "tests" and are made up of all forty songs featured, including such artists as Kendrick Lamar, Method Man, Rampage the Last Boy Scout, Black Star, Gunplay, De La Soul, Cannibal Ox, and many more, split into four ten-track episodes.

Episode A (Original post)
Episode B (Original post)
Episode C (Original post)
Episode D (Original post)

After working through those entries, the actual back catalog of the Max-Approved Mixtape begins anew, jumping back and forth in time to bring you some of my favorite songs from acts such as Mos Def, ScHoolboy Q, Random Axe, Benny the Butcher, Kool Keith, and a hell of a lot more.

Episode 1 (Original post)
Episode 2 (Original post)
Episode 3 (Original post)
Episode 4 (Original post)
Episode 5 (Original post)
Episode 6 (Original post)

Give these eps a spin, perhaps multiple times?, and pass them along on social media. These mixes are made to be enjoyed, so I'd appreciate it if they were enjoyed as such. And I'll see you later in the week for an announcement about what I'm doing this month in the place of a December 2020 Max-Approved Mixtape (or #Maxtape, as some people have been calling it, not me, it looks silly, but some people seem to love it, everybody's saying so).

-Max