FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show

Abstract

This article describes the potential political value of the hip-hop mixtape by demonstrating (a) how a consolidated radio and music industry media environment has largely made the medium of radio an agent of the suppression of mass organization and struggle; (b) how this suppression acts to maintain African America as an internal colony rather than a free citizenry; (c) how in response to this, the application of media theories and general frames of reference that center this experience is necessary; (d) that though hip-hop as a cultural expression has become part of the machinery of colonial control it still offers avenues of liberation specifically the underappreciated aspect of the mixtape as an African American underground communication and press; and (e) the potential of and challenge to mixtapes becoming a source of emancipatory journalism using the author's own Washington, D.C.—based FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show as case study.