A Very Special Christmas Gives Us A Very Special ‘Santa Baby’ Featuring Rev Run & The Christmas All-Stars
Beginning in 1987, A&M Records released the first of what would be a long-running series of Christmas albums with the goal of raising money for the Special Olympics. The album was A Very Special Christmas and featured, not only an eye-catching Keith Haring drawing as the cover, but a wide range of music acts contributing their unique versions of holiday classics.
Everyone from Mary J Blige & Tracy Chapman to No Doubt & Bon Jovi showed up to contribute songs over the next 10+ albums. But one of the most jam-packed songs came in Volume Three from 1997. A song so resplendent with talent, it got its own video. A Hip-Hop take on ‘Santa Baby’ featuring Rev Run & The Christmas All-Stars.
Those All-Stars being Mase, Puff Daddy, Snoop Dogg, Salt-n-Peppa, Onyx, Keith Murray, and Justine Simmons on the chorus.
First of all, please don’t let the fact that Diddy had a small verse on this track take away from the reality that this version of ‘Santa Baby’ absolutely bangs.
Seriously. I don’t know what you think you’re expecting. But what we ended up getting was a genuine classic and I wouldn’t even blink if you told me this was your favorite version of this holiday staple.
Jam Master Jay was on production duties and the core of the song is a flip of the Fugees track ‘Nappy Heads’ off their 1994 album Blunted On Reality. The result is a surprisingly haunting instrumental that perfectly sets the tone of a Christmas Eve longing for some good cheer on Christmas morning.
The video itself features a child, up alone on Christmas Eve, watching a black & white TV in the living room as we cut between static-filled TV footage of each of the live segments (Rev Run rapping outside in Queens, Snoop Dogg rapping out in an apartment stairway) and scenes of the boy sneaking around his house and spying on various rooms through their keyholes.
We also cut back to footage of Justine Simmons singing at church and passing the holiday collection plate around.
The whole mix of hazy black & white scenes with the motif of waiting for Santa on a late Christmas Eve creates a very evocative Christmas vibe. What could have veered way too far into parody, rides a perfect line between lighthearted and sentimental, without having to spell anything out for us.
The whole thing just works. If I told you Rev Run was rebooting ‘Santa Baby’, throwing his wife on the chorus, and adding in multiple rap verses; you might be just a bit curious and a whole lot skeptical.
Is ‘Santa Baby’ a sign of great artists coming together? Savvy production? A Christmas miracle? Whatever the case, we should just be thankful that a new school version of ‘Santa Baby’ came out sounding this good.
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