My favourite mixtape, ever, is Young Spray, ‘Realer Than Most volume 1′. Young Spray was an older artist from my area, we all looked up to him as one of the first rappers on this UK street rap.  I felt like it was coming from home and this was like the first time listening to music that I felt had a real meaning to it and told a story.

There were no features that revealed new artists to me. I also don’t recall the producer being mentioned, but the beats were hard.

I remember being in my area with my boy the first time I heard the mixtape, he had a copy of the mixtape. I was in college and we were driving around rinsing the tape and trying to look for girls- lol.

The mixtape came at a point where I was just starting to get into UK rap- getting deep into that cool lifestyle- you know, girls and money. Around that time every teenager is just trying to find themselves, trying to relate and identify with something I guess.

The mixtape cover reminded me of that 50 cent gangster shit- everyone who knows me knows I look up to 50. It was very street and raw. Like Young Spray just didn’t give a Fuck. I remember thinking “damn, this is road’.

I used to have a physical copy of the mixtape, not anymore though. I think one of my mates stole that from me. Thief… still trying to figure out who…

I don’t think I have any of my favourite mixtapes or albums as hard copies anymore. Everything is online now. I might have to start that trend again though…collecting all the hardest tracks.

If I could describe the mixtape in three words those would be- Hard, Real, Gassed.

My favourite track has got to be ‘Mummy Don’t Cry’. BANGER!

Words by Big Tobz