Mixtape

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Grammarist

Mixtape is a compound word that originated in the 1970s. Compound words are words that are derived from two separate words joined together. We will examine the definition of mixtape, where it came from and some examples of its use in sentences.

A mixtape is a compilation of songs on a tape, CD, USB stick, or an electronic playlist. The first mixtapes were made in the 1970s when cassette tape recorders came onto the home market. A mixtape was a way to compile one’s favorite songs from an album, thereby skipping less appealing songs on an album. A mixtape also made one’s favorite music portable. Romantic partners often make mixtapes for each other to express their feelings, or friends may make mixtapes for each other in order to share new music. The mixtape has evolved as an art form in hip hop music, where it is composed of self-produced recordings and released free of charge to the public. The word mixtape is a combination of the word mix, referring to the ability to include any song from any artist, and tape, referring to the original medium of the cassette tape. Almost always rendered as one word, it is sometimes seen as two words as in mix tape.

Examples

A friend’s older sister gave me a mixtape of Circle Jerks and Dead Kennedys back when I was probably 13 or so. (The Detroit Metro Times)

“And I remember around seventh grade, summer camp, one of the counselors gave me a mixtape, and on one side it had Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Band of Gypsys’ and the other side it had Funkadelic.“ (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Sosa dropped off his fourth mixtape of the year to close out 2017, taking a page out of Lil Wayne’s book with his own Dedication mixtape. (Billboard Magazine)