Down on Canal Street amidst hordes of vendors hawking knockoff handbags, cheap sunglasses, and all kinds of scarves, in a tiny stall below the awning advertising car stereos, there is one man who calls himself an artist.
“I’m famous,” he asserts when asked his name. “You should know who I am.” Unlike his neighbors selling glitzy fake Rolexes and Marc Jacobs perfume, this man doesn’t push designer knockoffs—or at least, not the same sort of knockoffs. This man is a DJ, and he deals in mixtapes: one of hip-hop’s most beloved, influential, and controversial commodities.
