Mike Love Presents: The Best of “Bad Boy Radio” Freestyles (1997-2007)

Mike Love just released this compilation/mixtape featuring some of the best freestyles from “Bad Boy Radio,” which was a show on Chicago’s WGCI Hip Hop radio station. The mixtape features some classic freestyles from the years of 97-07. Freestyles from artists like Busta Rhymes, Big Pun, Lord Tariq, Common, Q-Tip, Shyne, 50 Cent, Twista and even Shaq and Iverson. For serious hip hop archivists/collectors, this is a dope download. Here is what Mike Love had to say about the tape:

Seriously, I’m not one to wax nostalgic often but when I do look back at the Bad Boy Radio days, I realize today’s on-air DJs could never have the “freedom” that we had in our heyday. The cultural impact of Bad Boy Radio is still felt on Chicago radio today so I wanted to compile a lesser known but important segement of the show, the live in-studio freestyle sessions. By the millenium it was rare that a rapper could kick a verse without cursing so our interviews with rappers stayed just that, interviews. But in the early days every MC that stepped foot in the studio had to kick a verse. That said, there are some real gems here, from the classic All About The Bad Boyz (arranged by me) to Common’s freestyle over the Invocation beat (from One Day It’ll All Make Sense), to the late Big Pun exchanging verses with Fat Joe, to Twista jappin over Aaliyah’s One In A Million instrumental, to the entire Flipmode squad rhyming for 10+ minutes over a Master P track, to Juice’s crazy & completely off the dome freestyle, to DTP’s Shawnna noticibly stepping her rhymes up when former Infamous Syndicate partner Teefa steps in the studio, to KanYe West & Lupe Fiasco bringing the era to a close. Radio history was made.

Always a free mixtape download over here. Home of the free hip hop ixtape downloads. Tracklist and downloads below. Get Right…

1. All About The Bad Boyz-Chi-Town All-Stars (D.A. Smart, Common, Crucial Conflict, Do or Die, Twista) (1997)
2. Common Freestyle #1 (1997)
3. Crucial Conflict Freestyle (1997)
4. Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz Freestyle (1997)
5. Kid Capri Freestyle (1998)
6. Shaq Freestyle (1998)
7.Fat Joe/Big Pun Freestyle (1998)
8. Allen Iverson Freestyle (1998)
9. Flipmode Freestyle-Busta Rhymes, Lord Have Mercy, Rah Digga, Spliff Star, Baby Sham, Rampage (1998)
10. Twista Freestyle (1998)
11 Juvenile Freestyle (1998)
12. Brand Nubian Freestyle (1998)
13. Outkast Freestyle-Big Boi (1998)
14. Juice Freestyle (1999)
15. Profound Freestyle (1999)
16. Go-Getters Freestyle-Timmy G, GLC, Kanye West (1999)
17. Q-Tip Freestyle (1999)
18. DaBrat Freestyle (1999)
19. Common Freestyle #2 (1999)
20. Shyne Freestyle (2000)
21. Bad Boy All-Stars Freestyle-Mark Curry, Black Rob, Loon (2001)
22. DTP Freestyle-Ludacris, Shawnna, I-20, Tity Boy, Lil Fate, Teefa (2003)
23. 50 Cent Freestyle (2003)
24. KanYe West/Common Freestyle (2005)
25. Lupe Fiasco Freestyle (2006)

Download The Whole Mixtape Here or Here.