Just a few months ago, DJ Drama, Don Cannon, were arrested on racketeering charges from the Moorow County Sherrifs task force in Georgia, and had 4 cars, over 80,000 mixtape cd’s, computers, and recording equipment confiscated, along with having all of their assets frozen.

All of this, over the questionable legality of the “Mixtape”. It is usually an album-length promotional cd, used by Hip-Hop labels to build a healthy buzz for their artists, and many have even been financed by the labels themselves. Artists such as Fabolous, And Lil Wayne even headline such tapes. However, many labels view this as criminal, and righteously pursue those doing it. DJ Drama said this to Billboard about the situation:

“A lot of the impact is still up in the air because people are waiting to see what comes of our situation,” “But, I try to look at everything in a positive manner. The mixtape game needs to change for the better. People need to learn from this.”

Rumors were also swirling that Drama had been arrested for refusing to disclose his companys address a sper request. He denied all of this, saying “It was just never something I did. I don’t have bar codes on my mixtapes, because that’s not what the tapes are for. None of the products that were in Best Buy, FYE or Target came from DJ Drama.”

“There’s going to have to be some agreement between labels and artists that makes everyone comfortable,” said Drama, speaking of the thine line that mixtapes tip-toe.”Even if the labels figure out a way of working directly with the DJs to get the mixtapes done by offering an upfront fee that makes sense on their end and on ours. It could create a system that makes mixtapes comfortably buyable.”

Surprisingly though, Drama persists on going on with his life, and refuses to be the “martyr” for the scene, offering,

“We haven’t been indicted or officially charged so it’s hard to say,” “I’ve heard the ‘mixtape martyr’ term, but I don’t go backward, I go forward. Not just where does DJ Drama go, but where does the mixtape game go from here? People need to realize how important mixtapes are to hip-hop and the music business. Just look at the careers of people like 50 Cent, Young Jeezy, DJ Clue, and Jay-Z. There are people in very powerful industry positions that owe a lot to mixtapes.”