Since I first fell in love with underground music years ago and began surfing on SoundCloud, STRAPPED! has constantly been one of the foremost, and my personal favorite curators in the community. Supplying unreleased leaks, snippet audios, and hosting the music of many up-and-coming artists during the inceptions of their careers who would go on to blow up to either shortly thereafter or years down the road. Despite fighting copyright strikes and toxic fanbases the entire way, STRAPPED! has built a formidable brand and displayed eccentric but impermeable taste the whole way. This is why I was so thrilled last year when they dropped their debut mixtape Stay Strapped, Vol. 1. This project featured underground cornerstones and unknown artists alike, cataloging the many diverse sounds that power the community and giving a spotlight to a phenomenon that has notoriously lacked honorable promotional spaces, with other exceptions (like us 😉 obviously.
This year they are back already with Stay Strapped, Vol 2 which follows the same formula as the original, affirming the greatness of many of the scene’s biggest names and introducing new faces all at the same time. The comprehensive twenty-song project features Tony Shhnow, Draft Day, 10kdunkin, Stunna Cold, ATLSmook, Lil Xelly, BBKnight, Texako, BoofPaxkMooky, IceBirds, DC2Trill, FLEE, 1600j, MDMA, Destroy Lonely, Lil Candypaint, Thouxanbanfauni, Lil Yen, Bear1Boss, and Pollari. I hope that we get Volume 3 before the year’s end!
