Staying relevant as an artist in the Internet age means you must constantly keep your name buzzing. If you're gone for too long you'll lose your spot. Last year, many artists went the mixtape route to keep their music circulating in tweets of fans, bloggers and journalists. The projects worked to their advantage, offering many rappers -- and even R&B artists -- to climb the charts during the downtime between releasing official studio albums. To get you caught up on those that were most talked about and acclaimed, TheDrop.fm provides a list of the 10 best mixtapes of 2012.

 

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