Oli Sykes unearths the self-curated, bootleg mixtapes he used to sell at school, and now we want one

Back in the day, mixtapes were the OG way of listening to your favourite musicians on the go, without having to lug around your entire collection. They were also a handy way of sending handpicked music to your friends or school/uni crush on cassettes or CDs.

Or, if you are enterprising entrepeneur-in-waiting Sheffield schoolboy Oli Sykes, later to find fame as the frontman of Bring Me The Horizon frontman , you might use that CD-burning facility on your computer to start amassing a handsome – albeit strictly illegal – add-on to your weekly pocket money.

Many of us will remember a kid at school who used to run a mini tuck shop from inside their locker, sneakily selling sweets and other highly sought-after playground goods, and it appears that Oli Sykes ran a similar side hustle, but instead of bartering gobstoppers and fruit laces he ran the monopoly on nu metal CD mixtapes.

His bootleg products – the first titled Quakebeat, its sequel known as Quakesound –were comprised of a self-curated mix of nu metal heroes such as Crazy Town, Limp Bizkit,  Rob Zombie, Papa Roach, Linkin Park, Eminem, and more. Some tunes would even be remixed, or mashed-together, by ‘DJ Oli’, which is pretty sweet, considering the frontman is now a legitimate DJ at his very own club night, Greebo, which debuted in his hometown of Sheffield back in July.

Taking to Instagram to show off the rediscovered discs, Sykes writes: “my brother found my bootleg compilations I used to make and sell at high school lol. 5 quid each or 3 for a tenner along with every unofficial Eminem album that ever existed. Big up valley cru.”

Check them these collectors’ items below:

Source: loudersound.com