“Everyone Wanted a Copy”: The Surging Demand for Memphis Rap Tapes and the Bootlegs It Birthed

Supply and Demand in the Streets

In the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s, Memphis rap was more than just a regional phenomenon — it was a subcultural explosion. These tapes didn’t move through radio or retail chains — they moved hand to hand, trunk to trunk, in barbershops, flea markets, and stereo shops.

At the core of this street-level economy was one truth: demand always outpaced supply. When original pressings dried up, the bootlegs came pouring in.

These weren’t albums you’d find at Tower Records. They were raw, DIY cassette tapes — often with handwritten titles, sometimes no label at all. But to Southern youth who had never seen themselves reflected in mainstream rap, these tapes were gold.

 

Bump in the Trunk: How Car Culture Fueled the Scene

Car culture was a key driver in the rise of Memphis rap. As early as 1985 or ’86, Memphis teens were spending thousands on subwoofers, amps, and neon kits for their cars — and they needed something local and bass-heavy to shake their trunks.

Enter Mr. Z’s Sound Express, a now-legendary car stereo shop at 245 North Cleveland, run by Iranian immigrant Behzad Zarshenas. The first local tapes to move through the shop came from Sonni D, but the game changed around 1987 or ’88 when DJ Spanish Fly started wholesaling directly to Mr. Z’s.

 

Goin’ to Mr. Z’s: The Underground Rap Economy

Mr.Z struck a deal with Fly: if Fly recorded a promo jingle for the store, he’d get $200 every time it was included on a tape. The result — “Goin’ to Mr. Z’s” — became more than an ad. It was an anthem for the underground:

Mr. Z’s got the neon license tags everywhere
Neon lights under your car, it’s like you’re floating on air…

After the track hit the streets, demand for Memphis tapes exploded. Up-and-coming DJs and rappers who had once sold tapes out of backpacks and trunks were now wholesaling to Mr. Z’s — no paperwork, just cash and handshakes.

 

$3.50 Tapes, $5.99 Dreams

Duplication was cheap: around 50 cents a tape. Most artists skipped full artwork and used adhesive labels or hand-written tags. These tapes sold to shops for around $3.50 and were flipped for $5.99 plus tax. On good days, Mr. Z’s moved up to 100 tapes — a staggering number for an unregulated street economy.

But quality control was non-existent. Aside from polished outliers like Tommy Wright III, most tapes lacked tracklists, runtimes, or credits.

Then came a clever fix: a Mr. Z’s employee named Michelle started compiling a binder full of hand-drawn flyers, each one representing a tape. Protected in plastic sleeves, it let customers browse the underground like it was a catalog — an analog archive for a scene without structure.

Business and Brotherhood

Mr.Z’ wasn’t just a businessman — he was a believer. He supported young Black artists from Memphis’ roughest neighborhoods, sometimes even putting money on their books while they were locked up. His relationships were built on trust, hustle, and mutual respect. But not everyone played fair.

Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul and Juicy J — rising stars known for sharp business instincts — once burned their bridge with Mr. Z’s. They sent a middleman to deliver a tape, took payment for a full-length release, and only delivered three songs.

Mr. Z’s retaliated by bootlegging the tape himself — something he almost never did. In response, the duo allegedly returned with gunfire. A bullet pierced the shop’s front window — a lasting reminder of how real things could get in the Memphis underground.

The Crackdown: When the Tape Scene Collapsed

By 1997, DJ Paul and Juicy J partnered with Johnny Phillips of Select-O-Hits to crack down on bootlegging. Ironically, many of the shops they targeted were the same ones they had supplied during their early years.

Sting operations began. Police raids followed. The threat of $10,000 fines and jail time was enough to send a chill through the tape trade. Faced with legal pressure, Mr. Z’s dumped his entire cassette stock in a dumpster.

The binders disappeared. The dubs dried up. The street-level tape economy that had powered a generation of Memphis rap was forced back underground.

Today, bootlegs — once seen as a threat — are often all that remain. Many original tapes were never pressed professionally or properly archived. What we have now, as collectors and historians, are the surviving dubs.

Ironically, the same bootleg culture that once blurred the lines of authorship is also what preserved the music. Without it, much of the early Memphis rap catalog would have been lost forever.

 

Mr. Z’s Forever

Mr. Z’s is gone now, but its legacy still echoes in hissy intros, bass-heavy beats, and flickering memories of neon-lit trunks. It wasn’t just a stereo shop — it was the heart of an underground ecosystem, where hand-to-hand tapes built legends that still resonate today.