Which 8 current gems will make it on this Hip Cassette round-up? Plug that rusty tape player in, press play and make sure you keep notes…

by Christos Doukakis

SIDE A

KILL Carter & Dann Dib

‘Ballin”

trap

girlhouse

‘paul blart mall cop’

bedroom pop/indie

Ex-poets

‘Bay Of Pigs’

indie r&b/soul

Sound Science

‘Speleogenesis’

psychedelic pop/experimental

SIDE B

Just Leila

‘Approche toi’

French pop/indietronica

Drive Thru Alumni

‘London Girl’ (Feat. Alaina Cross, Jacob Zane & Cheeks Santana)

hip-hop/rap

Hexagon Cat

‘Sorry’

indie pop

Teophiell

‘Us Two’

indie r&b/neo soul

I had a boom box with a dual cassette deck and a mic, so I used to make pause tapes. I think a lot of people started like that because it was all I had. I would just take rap records that I liked and just loop the beat by pressing pause and record and make, like, five minutes of these beats.

El-P