This dropped right before Christmas 2019, and not being much of a hip-hop maven, it took a bit of research to discover that this is the rapper's fourth Christmas collection, after East Atlanta Santa in 2014, East Atlanta Santa 2: The Night GuWop Stole X-Mas in 2015, and The Return of East Atlanta Santa in 2016. I judge hip-hop based on whether a song or an album gets my attention without my having to know anything historical about the artist, and that's where Gucci loses me; there's a bunch of things that clearly link back to other recordings he's made or his personal history. I'll point out a few songs from this that stuck out to me, like "Jingle Bales Intro," the dancehall-reggae influenced "Drummer," the ballad "Snow" that rides over top of a wildly mutated sample of a Boyz 2 Men song, "Slide," and "Time Flies By." You might also like the "12 Days of Christmas," which is transmuted into the world of drug dealing, and even hip-hop can't resist throwing in a kid-sung number, "WWGD Outro," even though it, and the rest of the album, is wildly explicit -- something I won't hold against it or I'd have to delete at least half the punk rock entries from this site. (There's a clean version.)
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Even though the Santastic series of Christmas mash-up collections has officially ended, I occasionally end up at the website to see if anything's new, and it turns out the home page is promoting hip-hoppers Ghost Cave, who have an album out in 2019 plus two Christmas singles, the one in the title plus "We Three Kings" featuring Scott Burland. They're more dolorous synth-pop to my ears than hip-hop, but they're a pair of interesting Christmas noises nonetheless, so check them out.
Mabel is Neneh Cherry's daughter, and this 2019 single is a very cool midtempo hip-hop pop ballad full of the holiday angst suggested by the title. Unlike a lot of stuff in the genre, this is a solid musical composition with a great melody and could be covered credibly in any number of genres. I could do without the vocoder trills, though, that particular audio fillip is completely played out to my ears.
No idea where this particular DJ comes from (check here), but this is a fine mid-tempo hip-hop single featuring female voices, in this case Chelsi Om'nira. I like the "crimson holiday" premise, even if the only connection I can find is a seasonal gift shop in Santa Monica, CA featuring the works of local artisans. Considering the rap portion includes talk of walking around the mall, it appears to be all of a piece. Check this 2019 single out.
This is pretty much self-explanatory, no? A rap battle between Santa and the Grinch. I'm no taste-tipper regarding hip-hop, but I'm pretty sure rap battles went out with the cassette Walkman, so it's a little weird to encounter one in the year 2019. Nevertheless, here it is, and I'm happy to make it available for your holiday entertainment. There's independent audio on Amazon, too.
I have no idea who "116" is, let alone any of the folks who are co-billed on this 2019 holiday hip-hop recording. But I wanted to make sure folks got to hear this because it's very listenable. Four of the 12 songs appear to be original to this project, "Thanking You," "All Is Bright," "Nothin' But You," and "Real Love." All of these are mid-tempo or slower modern R'nB. The rest of the tunes are all remakes-remodels of familiar carols, some with tweaked titles, like "O'Come," ""Joy," "What a Time," "Noel," and "Angels." The other songs are "Silent Night, "This Christmas," and "We Three Kings." Those of you who hold hip-hop at arm's length would do well to give this a chance.
The popular hip-hop star just dropped this single for 2019, and it's pretty cool to these jaded old rock 'n roll ears. No big surprises content-wise, just an upbeat rhyming tribute to holiday anticipation that won't frighten the horses. It's pretty hooky too, definitely radio-friendly.
From Houston via England and West Africa, this 2019 single by Myoa is a really nice hip-hop holiday number with her sweet vocals and a bit of rapping from guest Rukus. It's a typical longing for love lyric, but then Rukus interjects a bit of the holiday's darker side before turning toward a hopeful outcome. Check it out.
Well, anything I might say about this item would be superfluous. It's damn entertaining, and as one of my Facebook friends would say, it's the "featuring Kool-Aid Man" part of the credits that makes it art. Enjoy it as it is, or track it down to Amazon to put it in your playlists.
The modern hip-hop singer dropped this EP fairly late in the season, and the title song is really interesting, if a bit long at 5:29. It starts as a medium-tempo ballad and swings into a rap, but picks up with the singing again at a more upbeat tempo. This is definitely good for the more eclectic playlists out there. She fills out the EP with versions of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" that are both straight contemporary jazz readings of these standard tunes, although 'Christmas' has a lengthy overblown improvised intro. I'd stick with the A-side for sure.
The hip-hop band known for "Black Beatles" dropped a couple of Christmas singles for 2018, also credited to Swae Lee and Ear Drummers. They include the slow jam "Christmas at Swae's," which is a sad take on the missing lover holiday tune, and "Nothing," which is a jumping shout telling his girl not to "share your wishlist." This is good stuff. There are clean and explicit versions for those who need to know.
This 17-cut collection of hip-hop cut-and-pastes comes to us from LA rapper and producer Jonwayne, and while it's more like the Santastic series of mashups than rap, it's not quite in the same classification as those collections in terms of yielding individual cuts that stand up in the same way as regular songs in your holiday mixes. Still, the songs, most less than two minutes long, have their moments, as they throw all sorts of obvious holiday totems, from whole songs like "This Christmas," "Christmas Time Is Here," and "Wonderful Christmastime," to snippets of TV and movies from "A Christmas Story" to "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," into the digital kitchen blender. I envision these tunes being used as bumpers in podcasts or inside playlists and mixtapes, or as soundtrack incidental music for holiday videos. From 2018.
About two decades ago we had the album Christmas On Death Row, from which we got Snoop's original version of this song. Fast forward to this year and Snoop roped Philly favorites Boyz II Men into helping him perform a new version of this for a "Showtime at the Apollo" Christmas show this year. And since this is the modern age, it ain't no thang to split off the audio and put it up to stream or download, so go on ahead now.
Jumbled is a DJ from Baltimore who compiled this 2017 collection of holiday songs built out of beats and samples by himself and other collaborators. Some of these items are just motifs, which might be an aid to podcasters and mixmasters looking to create something of their own. Among the full song performances, you might like the hip-hop stylings of "Just Another Holiday" by Reason, Darko the Super's "Stealing Shit on Christmas Eve" and "Another Very Darko Christmas," Che Rock's "38 Winters," JBerd's dis of "Mall Santa," and ALYX Ryon's "Chestnuts." Check it out on Bandcamp.
EDM DJ and music mogul Diplo keeps his string of Christmas albums intact with this 2017 entry into the canon. "Know No Better" by Major Lazer (and a cast of thousands, judging by the credits) kick things off in fine style with this uptempo jam, Party Favor performs "WAWA," which has nothing to do with the Philadelphia-area convenience stores but is a riff on "Jingle Bells," Foodman contributes "Island Christmas," a fairly languid instrumental with a modern take on reggae, and "Tropical Holiday" by LIZ & Hoodboi is a slow jam vocal about partying equatorial style. Aquadrop gives us the EDM version of "Feliz Navidad" we're all waiting for, "Smash the House" by Rrotik does the same for "Deck the Halls," Tre Oh Fie deconstructs "O Holy Night" in the fast-tempo "O Litty Night," and DJ Douggpound turns "We Three Kings" into "We Three Bings," but they do it by singing the "bing" syllable, not by sampling vintage Crosby. KiWi crosses EDM with K-pop on "What's In the Present Box," and SpydaT.E.K. offers "TEKK the Halls Up," another slightly more straightforward version of "Deck the Halls." This is for younger people than your favorite reindeer, but there are at least a couple of tunes here I'd consider for a playlist.
There are lots of strands of DJ culture outside the mash-up experts we've championed here over the past several years (and as of last year appear to have taken their places in the history books), and here we have one of house music's biggest stars diving into Christmas music with this 2017 album of mostly covers transformed by the house treatments. Actuallly, this is probably more chill, as there aren't many fast tempos here. There are a few originals, like the mid-tempo "Cold December," the slow-jam ballad "It's Beginning to Snow," and the chill-sounding "This Christmas Night," with guest vocal by Dia Frampton. "Christmas is Here" is a repurposed "Carol of the Bells," "Deck the Halls" with singer Erika gets a heavy syncopated synth-bass backing, Skylar Grey sings "O Come Emmanuel," Ilsey guests on "Silent Night," which has one of those wildly mixed-up tempos, and Gabrielle Current sings "The First Noel," which picks up the tempo considerably from the previously mentioned songs. Kayrae is the singer on "In the Bleak Midwinter," there's a jaunty "Winter Wonderland," and Jane XØ sings "Santa Baby," which gets a kind of robo-reggae rhythm. My pick to click off this is "God Rest Ye," which is the gentlemanly carol set to the backing of "Sara Smile" with Debra Fotheringham on vocals, but then I'm a sucker for this kind of juxtaposition arrangement. Check it out, it's the time of year we all have to chill, right? 
"Various artists" is a bit misleading, in that most of these tunes are by Sly Till I Die, occasionally with guests. This record label is based in south-central Michigan, promoting a roster of up-and-coming hip-hop artists, and this longish seven-song EP is their holiday joint for 2017. Sly is assisted by Sixx Digit on "Generous This Christmas," which is a party record about giving gifts, "Cookie Doe," featuring Sly and Woe, is a rap about collecting money for weed and gifts over a minor-key version of "Jingle Bells," and Postman assists Sly on a suitably portentious track celebrating "Krampus." Sly and Eod Homegrown posture menacingly on "Merry Scary Christmas," Kodeen offers an ode to "Spiked Nog," Sly takes all the credit for the midtempo "Christmas Without You," and Postman wraps up with "New Year New You." All the songs get the Explicit tag, just so you know before playlisting them.
This just dropped on Spotify, and apparently they have a playlist with some exclusive songs, like Sam Smith on "River" and Demi Lovato doing "I'll Be Home For Christmas." Not the most tuneful vocal, but if you need something hip-hop for under the tree, this is 1:37 of throwing down. Apparently there's a YouTube video of him doing it a cappella from a few years ago, but this is a full studio version. If you're not on Spotify, check it here.
I'm going to admit finally that I don't know what the young people are on about when they talk about "mixtapes." I used to make mixtapes in the cassette days; now I make mix discs out of other people's songs. I'm told I should be making mix thumb drives nowadays, but never mind. This, by contrast, appears to be new original hip-hop Christmas music for 2016 created by Chance the Rapper and Jeremih along with special guests. We used to call these things "albums," but in today's ADHD musical world nobody listens to albums. So mixtapes it is, I guess. And this is a really cool mixtape. Special mention to "Stranger at the Table," a repurposing of the Jackson 5ive's "I Want You Back" with new lyrics. It's all mostly mid-tempo or slower, almost slow-jam styled modern R'nB but with a fair amount of rapping. On "All the Way," comedian Hannibal Buress jokes about wanting more auto-tune put on his voice, and "I Shoulda Left You" isn't particularly holiday oriented. "The Tragedy" addresses a homeless man's plight in winter, and while it's a nice ballad and rap I'm still going to state the vinyl record crackling was a cliché back when people were putting it on CDs. "Chi Town Christmas" repurposes "Carol of the Bells" into something befitting a hip-hop record, and the title song wraps things up with the title being used as a mantra. A few stray expletives turn up here, but otherwise this is quite listenable even if you're not particularly oriented toward hip-hop. It's only on Soundcloud.
The Santastic series of holiday mash-ups ended with Vol. 9, but 8-Bit Mullet, a D.C.-area DJ, has revived the idea for 2016, offering the work of many of the DJs who provided their work for the Santastic albums. He's mashed them up himself into a 61-minute supercut, so I'm having a little trouble distinguishing where one DJ's work ends and another's begins. I guess that plays against my natural tendency to highlight particular cuts, but just as that didn't stop 8-Bit Mullet from mashing them together, that surely won't stop anybody from ripping them back apart. I'll point out that several of the cuts on here, like "No Sleep Till Christmas" by Divide & Kreate, "Insane Wonderland" by DJ Flack, "Cold Chillin' with Stevie at Christmastime" by DJ BC, "Jingle Bells Pon De Floor" and "Tommy's Royal Christmas" by DJ Schmolli, have already been on Santastic collections. It also appears that Mojochronic's Led Zeppelin mashups are on here uncredited. From among the rest, I'm enjoying "Frosty DMC" by Sam Flanagan, "Funky Christmas" by Brat, "Pumping Up Christmas" by DJ Schmolli, "Xmasploitation" by Mojochronic, and "Sister Christmas" by DJ Lobsterdust. If you'd like to see what 8-Bit Mullet has wrought here, by all means download this sucker free of charge.
Nice slow-jam hip-hop record for 2016. The artists say they were looking to highlight the special time of year with positivity, and it looks like they succeeded in this story of a family supporting each other through the tough times. Looks like it's only on Soundcloud for the moment.
Diplo's label keeps the string of hip-hop Christmas mixtapes/compilations going for 2016 with this just-out collection. This is enjoyable to listen to, mainly because there's a fair amount of Jamaican influence throughout, starting with opening track "Christmas Trees" by Major Lazer, a reggae-influenced number that is concerned with more types of vegetation than just the plant in the title, if you catch my drift. "Carnival" by 4B and "Mrs. Claus" by Bad Royale both float above the melody of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," and the latter is essentially a booty call for Santa's spouse (only song with an explicit notation, btw). Nonsens's "Gungla the Snowman" goes kind of reggaeton on Frosty's theme song, "Creepy Christmas" by Aquadrop & Big Fish isn't a shout-out to Halloween, but apparently addresses someone who's a "Christmas creeper" over "O Come All Ye Faithful." "The Christmas Party" by KiWi actually manages to mash up hip-hop and J-pop with a bit of Chipmunks thrown in, Jan Level's "World Peace" and Akira Akira's "Chrimbus" are instrumentals, as is DJ Douggpound's mix closer "Up On the Housetop." Some of these tunes get a bit clattery, but there's a lot of good pace-changers for your own mix. Heck, pull 'em apart and remix them yourself if you want.
Actually, I'm surprised somebody didn't come up with a hip-hop elf character before this. This is actually Robby's second collection, released in 2011, but I just found out about him this year. Not all the songs are really Christmas related, except that they're being performed by an elf, but it's out there for those of you who want to bust rhymes on Christmas. The title song is a discussion of the fundamental verities, peace, love and understanding and such. "Lost Christmas Love" is a love letter written to a lost lover, and "Christmas Poppin" is the opening statement from an elf dedicated to "Christmas crunkin'." "Bling" is pretty much about what rappers have instead of presents, although Robby's claim that Santa has a MySpace page means whoever the elf in charge of the North Pole's IT department needs to migrate old Father Christmas to Facebook, stat. "Boogie Bootie Bounce" is all about "how elves get down," and not so much about the holiday. "The Challenge" is your usual rap showdown number, and "Don't Hate" cranks up the guitars in support of the title's request. Overall, this is kind of old-school sounding, and the raps are a little too seriously intended for the concept, which is a rapping elf. If Robby keeps at this, I'd suggest a lot more humor in future raps. UPDATE: Robby's reissued this album with some additional cuts for 2016, including last year's single of "Christmas Forgiveness" and "Don't Be No Scrooge." Another new cut is "Boogie Bootie Bounce," again with the old-school rap sound, but fun. Apparently the updated album is only on iTunes and CDBaby for now.
This guy is apparently the latest and greatest in hip-hop, if you read Pitchfork, anyway, and for 2015 he's put up a Christmas tune on Soundcloud. Appears to be a stream only, so here you go.
Robby has made a business out of hip-hop Christmas music, and for 2015 he's got two new tunes. "Christmas Forgiveness" is a fairly conventional recitation over a musical bed offering holiday-themed affirmations, and that's only streaming on Soundcloud so far. "Don't Be a Scrooge" is available for download, and it's more of a hip-hop workout, though completely safe for work and therefore for your family playlists.
This is actually the second Christmas mixtape compiled by Diplo and Mad Descent, the first being called, wait for it, A Very Decent Christmas, from 2013. Of course, I'm just getting hep to this for 2014. Both are still streaming from Soundcloud, but click the cover to buy this one from Amazon, and click here to get the previous edition. Jessi Slater & Wuki kick things off with "Rock Them Bells," a heavy-bass version of "Deck the Halls" with the title chanted repeatedly over it. Diplo & Alvaro featuring Kstylis offer "6th Gear (Bethlehem Edition)," a holiday remake of the artists' existing song. Snappy Jit goes to the dancefloor with "Lil Drumma Boy," Aquadrop offers to "Troll the Halls," another deconstruction of "Deck the Halls," and Splurt Christmases up his "#OMW25YG" with a taste of "Frosty the Snowman." DJ Fire's "Twerkith On These Bells" is a fairly minimalist performance, 4B offers yet another clattery "Deck the Halls" take on "Drop It Again (Xmas Version)," Wiwek's "Totem Night" drops the beat on "Silent Night," Alizzz offers a deconstructed slow jam over "Jingle Bells" on "What If (Jingle Edit)," and Davoodi's "The Nutcracka" needs very little elaboration from the likes of me, in that it's the hip-hop take on the Tchaikovsky classic. Though I'm far from a hip-hop expert, this stuff is pretty listenable to me.
The Brooklyn-born, Venice Beach-based hip-hop collective offers this fine holiday jam on its Holiday in the Sun Sampler at Noisetrade for 2014. It's a rap tune with a solid musical background, relaxed but danceable, and it'll bring a fine change of pace to your playlists. The other songs on the sampler aren't holiday tunes, but don't sweat it, if you like the hit, you'll probably like the other tunes.
Mixing and mashing their way through the holidays are the various DJs and Pro Tools jockeys who help us get a different look at the holiday by cutting and pasting the familiar into something new. And appropriately enough, Mojochronic kicks off "Number 9" with "Yuletide Beatles," doing what Giles Martin did with The Beatles Love but emphasizing selections from the Fabs' Christmas flexidiscs in honor of the holiday. Mojochronic returns later with "Walking In LA Winter Wonderland," in which he builds an 80s Christmas song out of the Missing Persons' hit and Jean Dixon's version of the popular carol. Voicedude presides over a shotgun marriage of Mariah Carey and AC/DC on "You Shook Me All I Want For Christmas" and puts Smokey Robinson over Plain White T's on "Hey There, St. Nicholas!" Rapper DMX once did an off-the-cuff version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and dj BC lays it over the Burl Ives version here, then comes back with "Forgot About Merry," in which the Staples Singers meet an array of Christmas villains. ATOM offers "A Glimpse of James' Jingle Socks," in which James Brown is reimagined as a chill artist, and "Santa Ist Das Bein Stalker," in which a German guy snarks on Santa while various grooves play behind him, and I don't have any idea where that came from. DJ Schmolli keeps the Germanic groove going on "Weihnachtszeit-Song," and Divide and Kreate has Peggy Lee doing "Little Breakbeat Boy," in which various hip-hop beats accompany the "Little Drummer Boy." DJ M.i.F takes the "remix classic jazz age singers" craze of a few years ago a few steps further, going crazy on Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby with "Children Winter Wonderland." DJ Morgoth offers "The Power of New Divide," in which Linkin Park is uneasily joined to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and "Carol of the Tolling Bell" is G3RSt's combination of Metallica and Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra. And no, Metallica aren't playing "Carol of the Bells" on this mashup. Mashups aren't for everybody, of course, but for those who like to see familiar themes subverted, especially at the holiday, Santastic has become a great holiday tradition.
From El-P and Killer Mike's 2013 album, also titled Run the Jewels, this is their hip-hop holiday song. NSFW for lyrics, though not for visuals. I felt it was necessary to post this since it features a (gasp! clutch pearls!) black Santa.
If you were concerned that you weren't going to get your minimum holiday allotment of mashups, fear not, the eighth annual Santastic compilation is here to make your season. As always, you may debate which cuts are keepers and which are not, but there's no argument that everybody's likely to find something that will speak to them. And as the whole collection is free of charge, you can make that determination at your leisure. In keeping with the collection's cover art, we kick off with "The Christmas Massacre of Charlie Brown" by DJ John, which is a big beat overlaid on "Schroeder and Snoopy" and collaged with the speaking voices from the iconic "Peanuts" special. The collection's curator, djBC, mixes up "Cold Chillin With Stevie," combining Stevie Wonder, Juice Crew, Harry Potter, and Bob & Doug McKenzie, and "Jack Frost vs the Weatherman," using the TV special and snippets of the Mills Brothers. Every year brings us nods to the past year's popular culture, so we get Pimpdaddysupreme's "How KimYe Ruined Christmas" with Kanye West and Patsy Cline, DJ McFly's "The Sugar Plum Wrecking Ball" with Tchaikovsky meeting Miley Cyrus, DJ Schmolli's "Tommy's Royal Christmas" with the Who and Lorde, and Mojochronic's "Lou Christmas (Without You), in which the Velvet Underground meets Straight No Chaser and the Staple Singers. Mojochronic also gives us "Rudolph's Red Nose" with Gene Autry and Sage the Gemini, Voicedude offers "Folsom Prison Christmas" with Johnny Cash, "Last White Christmas" featuring Cream and the "Glee" cast, and "St Nick the Knife" with what is supposed to be Bobby Darin, but sounds more like the Joel Kopische parody. Divide & Kreate created a killer "No Sleep Till Christmas" from the Beastie Boys and Wham, DJ Tripp's "Just Like Rudolph" mashes The Cure with Gene Autry and snippets of "Island of Misfit Toys," ATOM throws in the kitchen sink on "Hark the Snow King's Marshmellows," and G3RSt's "Sleigh Me Like a Pirate" is for those who like to talk like one.
