Chance the Rapper and Jeremih release a surprise mixtape, Merry Christmas Lil' Mama.

Chance the Rapper and Jeremih Made You a Surprise Mixtape for Christmas

Chance the Rapper and Jeremih Made You a Surprise Mixtape for Christmas

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Brow Beat
Slate's Culture Blog
Dec. 22 2016 11:35 AM

Chance the Rapper and Jeremih Made You a Surprise Mixtape for Christmas

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Chance the Rapper at the National Annual Christmas Tree Lighting on Dec. 1.

Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty Images

It’s a few days early, but Chance the Rapper already got you a Christmas present. Along with his fellow Chicagoan Jeremih, he’s released a brand-new mixtape called Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama.

Where Chance’s Coloring Book, released earlier this year and prominently featured in many year-end polls, was an ostensible mixtape that played more like a proper album, the nine-song, 32-minute Merry Christmas is more playfully offhand. The Instagram post with which Jeremih announced its release, featuring a studio mixing board festooned with Christmas-tree lights and a copy of Monday’s Chicago Tribune, implied it’s only just been completed.

Merry Christmas Lil MaMa https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/sets/merry-christmas-lil-mama-jeremih-chance

A photo posted by Thumpy Johnson (@jeremih) on

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That doesn’t mean it’s entirely in the holiday spirit. Although it opens with a clip from A Christmas Story, the first song, “All the Way,” features some more dyspeptic musings on the time of year., courtesy of special guest Hannibal Buress. “Oh, Christmas,” he sighs, “being obligated to buy shit for people at a certain time of the year. I buy Christmas gifts, but just ’cause you’re supposed to.” Remembering the reason for the season, he warbles “Jesus” in a deliberately off-key voice, then asks, “Autotune that for me? … Put them Travis Scott effects on my shit.”

The mixtape also features Jeremih appropriating the melody from the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” on “Stranger at the Table,” and a song called “Chi-Town Christmas” that riffs on the seasonal standard “Carol of the Bells” and throws in a little “My Favorite Things” for good measure. With songs like “Tragedy” and “I Shoulda Left You,” Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama isn’t likely to knock Josh Groban off his pedestal, but if you’re inclined to roll your eyes at canned expressions of holiday cheer, it might be just the the thing to cue up on the ride to grandma’s house.

Listen to Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama here.

Correction, Dec. 22: This post originally misattributed Hannibal Buress’ lines to Chance the Rapper.

Sam Adams is a Slate senior editor and the editor of Slate’s culture blog, Brow Beat.