Oh, if only Jim Jones’ Christmas album A Dipset Xmas were on vinyl! What a joyous list this would be. Jim Jones - Ballin on Xmas (B-side of "We Fly High (Remix)" 12-inch) I used to play this song a LOT on my college radio station, but never actually during Christmas, because that was what the powers that be at my state-controlled mind-control-camp-cum-liberal-arts-“university” would have wanted. Dilla to Dream Theater, because Kurtis Blow was cool as hell like that. Kurtis interrupting some lame-o saying, “Twas the night before Christmas” to say, “Hold it now… hit it!” would eventually be sampled by everyone from the Beastie Boys to J. But unlike OutKast, the bassline for Kurtis Blow’s 1979 holiday hit sounds suspiciously like that of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” released just a year later. Much like OutKast, Kurtis Blow’s debut single was none other than a Christmas song. The title track is a genuinely great rap ballad, while “Jackin’ for the Holidays” finds Master P Grinchily jacking for beats, and “Christmas in the Ghetto” manages to be both sad and goofy at once.
The 1994 record succeeds for the reason that most of the label’s records from its pre-New Orleans days succeeded: the label’s unrelenting dedication to mob music, and Master P, who swoops in to resuscitate the track with his weird charisma whenever the energy might threaten to drop. With all due respect to Jim Jones’ A Dipset Xmas, this holiday-hop effort from Master P’s egregiously prolific No Limit Records might be the most genuinely enjoyable batch of Christmas gangster rap ever to be released. Various Artists - West Coast Bad Boyz: High fo Xmas EP “I realize it because I make sure I tell my kids every day.” “A lot of people don’t realize I directed OutKast’s first video,” said a self-satisfied Puff while swilling Ciroc in the documentary The Art of Organized Noise. Reid’s label LaFace (bet you didn’t see that one coming), the song found a life of its own––especially after the release of its music video, which just happened to be directed by goddamn Puff Daddy. Though it originally appeared as part of A LaFace Family Christmas, a Christmas compilation put together by Babyface and L.A. Last year, the track was re-released as a festive, red seven-inch for Record Store Day, coupled with the amazingly named song “N––az My Height Don’t Fight.” OutKast - "Player’s Ball" 12”Īnother fun fact: OutKast’s first commercially released single was “Player’s Ball,” a soulful Christmas rap featuring Southern-fried sleigh bells and a bassline smoother than an eggnog oil slick. Like, that will.i.am, the one from the Black Eyed Peas. release ends with what might be the most random song of all time: “Merry Muthafuckin’ Christmas,” Eazy’s redux of “Jingle Bells” that was produced by a pair of white dudes from Denmark and featuring the first recorded raps from a 17-year-old will.i.am. Dre’s The Chronic––but that doesn’t mean they aren’t all charming, original, and funny as hell.įun fact: Eazy-E’s first post-N.W.A. It would be unfair to say these tracks have not aged well, because they were not meant to be good in the first place––Snoop Dogg was under no illusions that “Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto” was not up to snuff with his contributions to Dr. There were a few Christmas rap songs that I wanted to include on this list but, regrettably, have not been released on vinyl–– “ Ghostface Xmas” and The Ying and the Yang of the Holidays, I’m looking at you two––but if you want to amuse your little cousin and horrify your parents through playing vinyl this holiday season, this here list is a good primer.
Part of why the “Christmas Rap Song” trope is so enduring is that it allows rappers to use holiday cheer as a weapon to deflate the overblown machismo and bluster that often serves as the backbone of the gangster rap persona while also indulging in it––what is a rapper like Jim Jones gate-crashing your Holiday party doing if not injecting danger into a holiday that in many ways defines our nation’s sanitized, capitalist impulses?
If hip-hop has a Constitution, buried somewhere within its depths, there is surely a clause stipulating that if you reach a certain echelon of success, you have to make a Christmas song.
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