January 16: The Mixtape Industry Changes Forever. (2007)

January 16, 2007 – On This Date In Hip-Hop, the office of mixtape king DJ Drama and Don Cannon’s Aphilliate Music Group was raided by heavily armed police in an attempt to disrupt what authorities perceived as a bootlegging operation.

Police arrested 19 people, froze accounts, took cars and seized over 50,000 tapes in the raid. DJ Drama’s Gangsta Grillz series had become a staple in the streets and were good for artist promotion. In fact, the music put on these tapes were given with the blessing of the artist/label.

Problem is, the RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] saw no difference between these kind of tapes and straight up bootlegs. In RIAA’s attempt to disrupt distribution channels instead of low level tape pushers, Drama and Cannon got caught up in the mix.

The mixtape game was shook up and today’s “mixtapes” aren’t mixtapes in their traditional sense.

Both Cannon and Drama have bounced back from this incident and continue to enjoy success from their labor including being co-founders of Generation Now.