Recently in 1990s Category

Names like Snoop Doggy Dogg suggest a rap album, but this 1996 CD only has a few rap tunes. Snoop kicks off with his take on "Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto," no relation to the James Brown number, and Operation From the Bottom revisits the theme with "Christmas in the Ghetto." The only other rap tune is Tha Dogg Pound's "I Wish." Danny Boy emotes on "Peaceful Christmas," Nate Dogg sings "Be Thankful," Sean Barney Thomas does "Party 4 Da Homies," and covers of the standards "Silver Bells," "Silent Night," "O Holy Night," "White Christmas," and a few others are all straight 90s rhythm 'n blues arrangements. Danny Boy also covers Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" and Guess takes on Smokey Robinson's "Christmas Everyday," sneaking in a sample of the original along the way. For the most part, this is a pretty straight R&B Christmas album, so if you were expecting mostly rap, be advised, especially since this album does carry a Parental Advisory tag.

This plea for the needy is on A Very Special Christmas 2 from 1992, and it's not bad; an old soul groove (can't identify it, but it sounds familiar) under the rap, with a great chorus: "Give up the dough, give up the dough for Christmas, yo!" Plenty of quotes and rhymes to move it along. This one doesn't turn up as often in other places as did "Christmas in Hollis," so you'll most likely get it off this Special Olympics album.

Great rap single from 1991 with a message that definitely clashes with the season. Millie is the daughter of the singer's social worker, suffering sexual abuse at her father's hands. Dad has a side gig as a Macy's Santa; you can see where this is going. Powerful stuff from this seminal hip-hop act, but you might not want to hoist eggnog toasts while it's playing. No downloads, but the Amazon link takes you to some possible used copies.

This 1993 effort is available in two versions, a "clean one" and a "dirty one" (called Christmas at Luke's Sex Shop), in keeping with Luke's history as the originator of 2 Live Crew's As Nasty as You Wanna Be. The song lineups are completely different on the two; the "clean one" is pretty much 90s-style rhythm and blues with a little bit of talking in front and in the middle of the songs. Artists helping Luke out include H-Town, U-Mynd and Chris Brinson and the Gospel Music Ministry Choir. As risque as the clean one gets is "Knockin' Boots for Christmas." The tunes are mostly original, although "We Bring You Joy" swings into "The Christmas Song" and "H-Town's Coming to Town" steals liberally from the Santa Claus version of the song. I don't have a copy of the dirty version handy as of this writing (UPDATE: It's available for downloading, click above), although I recall one of the songs on it is titled "Ho-Ho-Ho's" or something similar that alludes to the street name for prostitute.

Some old-school hip-hop on this EP from 1991, with "Chris Kringle is a Black Man," heavy on the synth bass, talking about one of the vocalist's Compton neighbors; "Ebony's a Scrooge," rapping over the riff from Johnny Taylor's "Disco Lady"; a deconstruction of Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas"; lots of ghetto talk in the disjointed title song; and "Brighter Days," a languid mid-tempo jam that alternates singing and rapping about hope for the future. If you can still find this, it'll probably be in clearance racks. Language advisory.

This hip-hop compilation from 1996 features more party-oriented music than a lot of rap holiday collections. There's more singing on this CD, the beats are consistent and the arrangements are tight. "Alone" by Joni featuring 24K is a medium ballad about being just that on Christmas Eve. The 69 Boyz talk about "What You Want For Christmas," which may still include a 12-disc changer but almost certainly doesn't include "nine Sega tapes." A remix of the song appears later on the disc. "Where Dey At YO!" is Knock singing about "the real men" who "don't sell drugs" and "stay home with me sometime." Big Dave and Tina reconstruct the standard "White Xmas" in their own hip-hop arrangement, and the album closes with a brief remix of it. "Da Jam" is a fast rap by UndaAged -- too fast for me to get much of the lyrics, unfortunately. "Xmas Blues" by BigTyme (no, not Dick Cheney) is a talker over a blues background. This is pretty good overall, even non hip-hop fans should be able to enjoy this.

This rap act is best known for having had a Disney-owned record company cancel its first album for the label minutes before its scheduled release because of pressure from the usual suspects. But they survived unscathed, and this 1997 single is the proof. "Santa is a Fat Bitch" pretty much lives up to its title, with the vocalist's complaints about never getting anything for Christmas leading to threats to kill Father Christmas. Say guys, do the words "naughty and nice" mean anything to you? The band gets its just desserts in "Red Christmas," in which the singers try Santa's trip down the chimney for themselves, only to run into the real St. Nick, who ices them; this is followed by several Christmas carol parodies. These would be a lot funnier if the Posse had a little more sense of irony; the Parental Advisory sticker, meanwhile, speaks for itself.