Inside the Mixtape Museum: Saving Cassettes and Stories to Preserve Our Musical DNA | A Conversation with Sommer McCoy | Music Evolves with Sean Martin

Guest and Host

Guest: Regan Sommer McCoy, Chief Curator of Mixtape Museum | Website: https://sommer.nyc/

Host: Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast & Music Evolves Podcast | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com/

Show Notes

In this episode of Music Evolves, host Sean Martin connects with Sommer McCoy, founder of the Mixtape Museum, to explore how a simple cassette tape became a cultural vehicle for creativity, connection, and entrepreneurship—especially within hip hop. Sommer’s journey starts with managing hip hop artists like the Clipse, where a label dispute revealed the real power of mixtapes as grassroots distribution tools when the industry’s gatekeepers were roadblocks.

Sommer describes mixtapes as more than just homemade compilations; they are living archives of personal and collective history. From recording DJ sets off the radio to carefully curating tapes for summer camp, these stories form a thread that binds generations. Through the Mixtape Museum, Sommer captures not only the tapes themselves but also the hidden data inside—the handwritten J-cards, the audio quality that degrades with each copy, and the layers of social exchange that gave rise to underground music scenes.

What’s striking is that the Mixtape Museum does not seek to own every cassette but instead to document, digitize, and study them. Sommer, a database manager by day, focuses on preserving the stories and metadata behind each tape, spotlighting the artists, DJs, collectors, and communities that sustained the mixtape era. Supported by a Grammy Preservation Grant, she’s already digitized dozens of tapes while helping other collectors understand how to safeguard their archives.

The conversation touches on how mixtapes laid the groundwork for today’s playlists and streaming culture—yet today’s digital curation lacks the physical, handcrafted artistry that made each cassette unique. Sommer’s mission is to encourage collectors and students alike to look deeper: to uncover forgotten shoebox treasures in attics, to share memories, and to research how these tapes shaped music and culture long before social algorithms took over.

At its heart, the Mixtape Museum is an open invitation to honor the past while inspiring new ways to think about music’s role in documenting who we are. For Sommer, each cassette holds more than songs—it holds a memory worth saving.

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Resources

Mixtape Museum: https://mixtapemuseum.org/

More From Sean Martin on ITSPmagazine

More from Music Evolves: https://www.seanmartin.com/music-evolves-podcast

Music Evolves on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnYu0psdcllTRJ5du7hFDXjiugu-uNPtW

On Location with Sean and Marco: https://www.itspmagazine.com/on-location

ITSPmagazine YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@itspmagazine

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