50 made it trendy to blow up your rap career through mixtapes almost a decade ago. Just now are other artists just catching on and putting out music through that format. That business model alone is helping launch the careers of rappers like Waka Flocka, Wiz Khalifa, and whoever. Not the best examples lyrically and talent wise, but you get the gist of it. I give 50 props from day one with the hustler's mentality. Jay-Z, Master P, Puff Daddy, Dr. Dre, etc. were the first to insist on holding masters of their recorded material, start labels, and what not. People may look down on this genre of music, but the folks who do this stuff is smarter than you think. How can you explain a kid like Soulja Boy duping a bunch of teenager kids (and some adults) into spending millions on his concerts, memorbillia, and CDs?