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Hip-hop at 50: the importance of DatPiff.com

New York Times writer Brian Josephs talks about the legacy of mixtape site DatPiff.com, and why archiving the catalogues of sites like DatPiff is important.

New York Times writer Brian Josephs explains the role of mixtape websites in preserving hip-hop history

CBC Arts ·
French hip-hop singer Joey Starr performs, 23 October 2006 at the Olympia in Paris.
French hip-hop singer Joey Starr performs, 23 October 2006 at the Olympia in Paris. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP via Getty Images)
6:22How mixtape catalogue websites keep hip-hop alive

Long before Spotify and streaming music was a thing, mixtapes were everything.

DatPiff.com was one of the most popular mixtape sites of that era. Now, there's a race to archive the mixtape catalogues on DatPiff and other sites like it.

New York Times writer Brian Josephs joins host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about the legacy of mixtape site DatPiff.com, and why archiving the catalogues of sites like DatPiff is important.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Brian Josephs produced by Ty Callender.

For more stories about the 50th anniversary of hip-hop — including Tom Power's conversations with some of the artists who witnessed and shaped the genre — check out Hip-Hop at 50 here.

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