So Clown Prince gave me an advanced download link of the mixtape.  I’m going to give a breakdown of what I thought about it, with my 100% real opinions along with a little bit of nitpicking.  I have it broke down by intro, what I consider the three elements of underground streetball (streetball/straight game, trickball, and freestyle),as well as editing and music.  Here it is -

The mixtape starts off different than a typical mixtape, there are some slick effects used for a Marvel comics type text intro, and a lot of different clips used from a variety of different things (I won’t give away what exactly) that happened in the year 1988.  I thought the intro was just a tad long, but overall I thought it worked well and it set a unique mood for a mixtape.  However, I didn’t think that this 1988 theme really tied into the rest of the mixtape, it was just kind of in the intro, but after that it doesn’t really appear again. 

Streetball/straight game footage. 

This is probably the best straight-game/grimey-style streetball footage I’ve seen to date.  There are so many nasty drops, crosses and dunks it’s literally ridiculous.  There are even some clips of multiple drops in one play.  The mixtape has a nice mix of footage from high school and college games along with pickup game footage.  There’s some real high-fliers on the mixtape and a bunch of sick alley-oops from organized games.  Swift, Arcade, T-Todd all hold the tape down in this department really, really well.  I’d probably have to say the Swift and T-Todd were my favorite guys on the mixtape overall.  CP also has one play that’s just funny to watch the defenders on, but I won’t ruin it for those of you who haven’t seen it.

Trickball. 

Honestly there wasn’t a whole lot of super creative trickball type footage on here, but there’s enough to keep trickball fans happy, though.  The main guys breaking out the creative in game moves are Mad Skillz, CP, and White Magic.  All of them did their thing, overall I think Skillz had some of the nicest looking moves, and CP probably had the most creative moves.  Skillz had one handstand move that kind of made me mad though, because I’ve got myself on tape doing the same move to a few guys, lol.  Anyways, overall the trickball stuff was solid overall, but didn’t really “wow” me a whole lot.  Skillz and CP were the only ones who made me hit the rewind button a few times.  There were about 4-6 moves that I really thought were dope, but other than that most of it I thought was just nice, but not insane.  However, I wouldn’t say there was any filler footage or flat-out bad trickball footage on the mixtape.

Freestyles. 

I hate to say it, because I was really looking forward to these freestyles after all the hype, but I was kind of disappointed with them. 

Mad Skillz freestyle particularly was being talked about as being one of the best frees ever, and I thought it was nice, but not as nice as I kept hearing.  For a mixtape free, I generally expect to see a lot of new moves, and Skillz brought a bunch of new combos, and only about 2-3 new moves.  His style and speed were nice as always, and the difficulty level was up there for some of the stuff also, but it just kinda fell a bit flat for me personally.  Regardless, it was still probably one of the better frees of the year. 

CP’s freestyle brought out more of a creative side, which was sick, but it seemed like a lot of the moves weren’t pulled of very cleanly in the beginning of the freestyle.  However at the same time, he pulled out some really innovative ideas, and I have a great appreciation for that, because that helps keep the scene moving. 

Last Chance’s free was somewhere in between CP’s and Mad Skillz in terms of how it was performed.  There was a little bit of creative stuff, and overall was pretty clean.  I thought it was solid, but not amazing.  Again, I kind of expected a little bit more out of a mixtape freestyle. 

All the locations for the freestyles were sick, they definitely put some thought into them, and it added to the overall production.  The beats and edits on the freestyles were all nice also, and there were little interviews spliced in with the freestyles which I thought was dope.  However, I would’ve liked to know some more interesting stuff about the players and their thoughts, it seemed like the interviews were kind of bland, except for LC’s.

Editing/Music.

The edits and beats on the tape overall were all on point.  The editing and clip selection was obviously done with a lot of thought and time.  The tape wasn’t over-edited or under-edited, with a few effects here and there, and smooth transitions between clips, segments and scenes.  The beats were all ill, usually when I watch a mixtape there’s one or two beats I don’t really like, but this one was phenomenal all the way through.  It sticks with real hip-hop, and keeps the tempo up, but still changing slightly, which worked great for giving the mixtape a dynamic feel. 

Overall I’m going to give this mixtape 8.5 out of 10.  The straight-game footage is really the highlight of this tape. The trickball isn’t very prominent, but what is there is great, which I think is the right way to go.  I thought the freestyles were what kind of held the mixtape back a bit to be honest - and again, all of them were great, but I didn’t feel like they were amazing or up quite to par with the game footage.  The beats and production were some of the best you’ll see from a mixtape.  Overall this tape is definitely one of the best of the last 5-6 years.  It might even be one of the best ever, I’m not sure I’m ready to say that quite yet, but it seems like the type of tape that could grow on you . . .