A MIX TAPE

“A mix tape, Mali, is a beautiful thing. Sadly it pretty much died out with cassette decks in the early 90s but for you I felt a revival was justified. A mix tape is a cassette of various tracks from one person’s music collection, lovingly hand picked for a special and very lucky recipient and individually recorded into a little album for them. It’s the craft and investment of time that let’s the recipient know they’re special, even if the actual product was pretty bad! For your modern day email equivalent we’ll have to set the artificial 12-track limit to make sure each track is important. You up for it?”

Hell I was!

I never had a mix tape done for myself, never done one for someone else either!

It sounded like an awesome new thing to do, so I sat down and started browsing my music collection and playlists.

There is a certain atmosphere to music.

Since music is vibration it affects our emotions bluntly.

If we look at the playlists of other people and friends we get an idea about how they roll.

We identify with the music we listen; we express our emotions, feelings and beliefs through music because we choose (mostly subconsciously) genres and songs that reflect parts of our character.

That’s why I found putting together a mix tape quite challenging.

It made me feel slightly vulnerable, sharing parts of myself with someone else, giving someone an understanding to my emotional world.

I put up a folder and started putting some of my favourite songs in there…by the time I got tired my playlist has reached the amount of 34 songs and I wasn’t even half way through my music collection!

That was the moment I got totally hooked with the idea of a mix tape!

Back then in the old times there was of course less artists to chose from, whilst nowadays new artists, bands and songs are sprouting like weed everyday!

Whenever I share music with friends, we usually swap pen drives with about 50 songs or sth like that and yes, I am always happy about this, but this was different!

I started listening to all the songs carefully. Each song carried memories or was stirring emotions inside of me. I had to dig deep and ask myself if this is what I wanted to share with my mix-tape-companion.

What was it I wanted to share?

What was it that I wanted to express?

And what is it that I wanted my mix-tape-companion to feel?

Quickly I got down to only 16 songs, and finally to quiver of only 12 tracks.

I found doing a mix-tape digitally was also quite fun, since nowadays you can find a lot of webpages that do mix tapes for you!

You can choose the look of the tape, upload the pictures, choose colours, style, and fonts for writing and so on. The list is endless!

Finally, there I was, staring at my fully individualized first mix-tape ever! Digital or not, it felt amazing and I sent it off.

Making a mix tape is fun and great experience, but receiving one is even more thrilling!

The excitement before the first song comes up is nearly unbearable and when the first song hit me, it’s like entering a rollercoaster ride for the next 30min.!!!

The first mix tape I received was amazing!!!

From the very first song, it hit me like a gun with a song that fitted into my very emotional state right away.

Each following song was new to me, felt like a great tune I could connect beautiful memories to and resonated with me, whilst also representing a part of my mix-tape-companion!

At the moment, out here in bigT, the sun is slowly rising.

I can slightly hear the shorebreak of the ocean through my headphones whilst coasting on my longboard past the sea out of town, listening to my first mix-tape ever!

With “Coolio – Cruising” I’m totally thrilled and fully touched, thinking: “Man, that’s one of the best presents ever!!!”

“A mix tape is like a letter…only on a higher vibration!”

EVERYONE OUT THERE, MAKE A MIX TAPE!