Back on Super Bowl Sunday in 2010, Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints took down Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts by a score of 31-17. But when I think back to Super Bowl XLI in Miami, I think about the Smokee Robinson mixtape from Curren$y that dropped that morning. Curren$y hails from New Orleans, LA so it was only fitting that he dropped the mixtape 15 years ago to support his hometown squad in their first Super Bowl. The Smokee Robinson mixtape was dipped with the artwork looking like a sports card and the project couldn’t start off better with “Jordan 3s”… While the Super Bowl had all of the buzz on February 7, 2010, underground rap fans who lived on the blogs were all bumpin the new Curren$y mixtape.
Here we are again on Super Bowl Sunday and I’m thinking back to the mixtape from Curren$y. Pretty fitting that Super Bowl LIX is being held in New Orleans, LA. It’s only right that I go back to this mixtape which I feel really put Curren$y on the map. Sure he was already buzzing with his affiliation with No Limit Records and Young Money which were 2 record labels he was on in the 2000’s. Being down with Master P and No Limit and Lil Wayne and Young Money Cash Money officially stamps you as somebody to watch. Pretty dope that they were both labels coming out of New Orleans as well. Curren$y was already on his grind back then dropping project after project. I think it was the 2009 mixtape with How High with Wiz Khalifa that first caught my attention. That track “Car Service” was hard to ignore back in 2009…
Curren$y’s project Jet Files dropped that same year in 2010 and at that point, Spitta was on everybody’s radar who stays on the rap blogs during that time. That track “The Pledge (In and Out")” was something man… That production followed by that trademark Currensy slow flow was a track that stayed on repeat. At that point in 2009, I was checking for every Curren$y release.
The Smokee Robinson mixtape dropping on Super Bowl Sunday was marketing genius. It was the perfect soundtrack leading up to the big game. Everybody wanted the underdog to win, especially with all that New Orleans had been through with Hurricane Katrina crushing the city just a few years earlier. This was New Orleans first Super Bowl win and every year when it’s Super Bowl Sunday, I can’t help but think of this Smokee Robinson mixtape.
Of all 22 tracks that were on this mixtape, there was 1 that truly showed me that Curren$y was about to blow up. It all started with that amazing beat from Ski Beatz. Yes, the same Ski Beatz who laced Jay-Z with “Dead Presidents” and “Feelin It” off of Reasonable Doubt. Yes, the same Ski Beatz who was behind the production on “Lucchini aka This Is It” and “Coolie High” from Camp Lo…. Now he was working with Curren$y and their first track together was “Life Under the Scope” and it was rap perfection. Little did the world know that later that year the two would be linking up for their first full project, Pilot Talk. Little did the world know that Curren$y was about to be a name that you couldn’t ignore in the rap game. To me, it really all started with “Life Under the Scope” that was just different. A classic track from a mixtape that still gets bumped by me every Super Bowl Sunday. Cheers to the 15th year anniversary to the Smokee Robinson mixtape dropping and cheers to the classic track, “Life Under the Scope.”
Give that Smokee Robinson mixtape a spin this morning…
and if you’re looking for more from Curren$y I got you covered there too. Here are my favorite tracks from Spitta. Hard to keep up with the prolific emcee who seems to drop 10 projects a year… He’s one of my favorites… Don’t sleep.