Archive · Action Bronson
Blue Chips 2
By Diony C.
•July 31, 2026
•5 min read
Action Bronson had already made two Blue Chips tapes with almost no attention. The third time, in 2013, Party Supplies' beats and bar-for-bar chemistry got him signed. Now streaming in the archive.
Action Bronson was a chef before he was a rapper, and for years it showed in how little the industry cared. He’d already released two Blue Chips tapes with producer Party Supplies, loose, ad-libbed, built on chopped soul and disco samples, and almost nobody outside a small circle of rap obsessives noticed.
Blue Chips 2 changed that.
Stream the full tape in the player above.
Third Time Was the Charm
Same formula as the first two Blue Chips tapes. No features to speak of beyond hype man Big Body Bes and a handful of guests. No radio play. Party Supplies still flipping records most people had never heard, chopped soul and disco loops built for a rapper who talked as much about food as bars. Bronson still rapping like he had nothing to prove and everything to say anyway.
Except this time the internet actually caught it. Pitchfork covered it. So did every outlet that had ignored the first two Blue Chips tapes. Released free on November 1, 2013, via Vice Records, it became one of the most acclaimed mixtapes of that entire era of rap blogging, the kind of tape people still bring up as proof that a mixtape, released for free with zero commercial infrastructure behind it, could still be a genuine artistic statement.
It also did something more concrete: it got him signed. Atlantic and Vice picked him up not long after, and Bronson’s first proper major-label album, Mr. Wonderful, arrived in 2015 as the studio-budget version of everything Blue Chips 2 proved he could do without a label at all.
What’s On the Tape
Nineteen tracks, all produced by Party Supplies, almost all of them just Bronson. “Silverado” opens the tape, followed by an “Introduction” from Big Body Bes that sets the tone: unbothered, funny, confident. “Practice,” “Contemporary Man,” and “Midget Cough” are pure Bronson, stream-of-consciousness bars over samples that shouldn’t work together and do anyway.
The guest list is short and specific. Meyhem Lauren, Bronson’s longtime Queens collaborator, shows up on “Jackson & Travolta.” Ab-Soul appears on “Through the Eyes of a G.” Mac Miller joins Big Body Bes on “Twin Peugots.” Retchy P is on “Flip Ya.” Jeff Woods closes things out on “In the City.” The centerpiece is “9.24.13,” a Big Body Bes-assisted highlight that’s still the song most people point to when they talk about this tape.
Why This Tape Lives Here
Blue Chips 2 has never had an official commercial release. No vinyl, no CD, nothing you can buy. It exists exactly the way it was meant to: free, DatPiff-era, mixtape culture in its purest form. That’s exactly why it belongs in this archive’s native player rather than anywhere else.
Watch
Action Bronson + Party Supplies, “9-24-13” feat. Big Body Bes, from the tape’s own YouTube channel. Still the song most people point to first.
From the Crate
The tape that got him signed doesn’t exist as a product. The album that came after it does.
Two years after Blue Chips 2, Mr. Wonderful arrived as Bronson’s major-label debut: the same chemistry with Party Supplies, live instrumentation and string arrangements pushing the sound further, a Chance the Rapper feature, still built on samples most rappers wouldn’t touch. If the free tape is what got him signed, this is what the label got for its money.
2xLP · Atlantic Records
Mr. Wonderful
Released July 24, 2015. The major-label version of everything Blue Chips 2 proved he could do for free.
Shop Mr. Wonderful 2xLPCatch Him Live
Thirteen years after Blue Chips 2, Bronson is still doing this the same way: intimate rooms, a real band, no interest in playing it safe. He’s playing New York twice this August, back to back weekends.
Sold Out · Waitlist Open
Action Bronson & Human Growth Hormone
Thu, August 20, 2026 · Doors 7 PM · (Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St, New York, NY
Tickets Available
Action Bronson Presents: Planet Frog + Live In Living Color
Sat, August 22, 2026 · 8 PM · Mulcahy’s Pub and Concert Hall, 3232 Railroad Ave, Wantagh, NY
More From the Archive
For another sample-driven tape from the same underground era, We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 2 catches Clipse before Re-Up Gang broke wide. Dillagence is the other side of that coin, a producer’s vault turned into a tribute rather than an audition tape. For the wider story of how the free tape became the format that mattered, read The Evolution of Mixtape Culture.
Stream the full tape in the player above.
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