mixtape

noun

mix·​tape ˈmiks-ˌtāp 

variants or less commonly mix tape

plural mixtapes also mix tapes

1

: a noncommercial compilation of songs copied (as onto a cassette tape or a CD) from various sources

In high school, I'd be making mixtapes for friends and girls instead of doing my homework, spending hours perfecting how a Smiths song and Joy Division song and Pixies song would convey the way I feel.

—Aaron Axelsen, quoted at SFGate.com

Writers like Nick Hornby have imbued the cassette tape with considerable romance, in particular the mix tape created for a loved one. In practice, these were often recorded directly from the radio, requiring your typical suburban suitor to sit around for hours on end, waiting for the desired track to appear.

—Richard Glover

2

: an album that is usually recorded and distributed without the involvement of a record label

The mixtape is an unofficial release. It might be tied to an imprint or a label, but it doesn't necessarily appear in stores. In fact, most of them can be purchased only on the streets, at the clubs, from the trunks of cars or from the artists themselves.

—Lance Scott Walker

Long before rap got any radio love, mixtapes were the main form of distribution, the currency that kept everything in rotation as the culture evolved.

—Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael

High-fidelity and laden with hits, So Far Gone had the sheen of a professional studio album, and it popularized the idea of mixtapes as low-pressure showcases for burgeoning artists.

—Jonah Bromwich

Examples of mixtape in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

While the mixtape itself hasn’t proved to be a standout win, one track from the effort has become a hit. —Hugh McIntyre, Forbes.com, 9 July 2025

Truthfully, a lot of the mixtapes were hit-or-miss studio session dumps with half-assed themes. —Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 4 July 2025

But with the Zeds Dead skillset, honed over a 16-year career that contains a debut LP, multiple mixtapes, hundreds of singles and remixes and countless shows, the duo made its excellent second album, Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness. —Katie Bain, Billboard, 3 July 2025

Always Something There … is a totally rad musical celebration of the pop culture and fashion of the 1980s, with the most awesome mixtape of hits by Madonna, Pat Benatar, Debbie Gibson, and Whitney Houston, and other music icons, director James Vásquez said. —Gina Grillo, Chicago Tribune, 3 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1985, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for mixtape

• agape
• escape
• landscape
• lenape
• reshape
• seascape
• soundscape
• ape
• cape
• crape
• crepe
• drape