MERRY CHRISTMAS LIL MAMA: ALBUM REVIEW
Chance the Rapper and Christmas are a match made in heaven. Both are filled with copious amounts of joy and both mean more to most people than can be seen from the outside. When Chance the Rapper and Jeremih dropped their first collaborative, Christmas themed mixtape, “Merry Christmas Lil Mama” in 2016, it was a fun revelation. Since that first tape, Chance and Jeremih have turned themselves into mainstays at Christmastime with a variety of songs that perfectly fit the holiday mood. Chance and Jeremih’s newest project, Merry Christmas Lil Mama: The Gift that Keeps on Giving, is a compilation, bringing together the best tracks from both installments of the MCLM series, along with two new original cuts from Chance.
The two new Chance songs “The Return” and “Who’s to Say” are beautiful tributes and acknowledgments of all that Chance has created. After last year’s, The Big Day, all Chance fans have wondered what’s coming next. Would Chance listen to the hate around him, ignore it, or take the criticism and become stronger? Chance responded by going back to his roots and dropping two of the best verses he’s spit in a long time.
There are flaws all over this project. It’s incredibly low effort and filled with little things that make your eyes roll, but Merry Christmas Lil Mama is low effort in all the best ways. It never takes itself too seriously or acts like anything it isn’t. It’s an album made by two good friends, at the peak of their creative prowess, messing around and having fun with Christmas tunes. That is not to say that the album feels incomplete at all. Each song feels fleshed out and it feels like a true collaboration between both artists. They often trade off lines, subtly laughing at each other’s jokes.
While the two mixtapes released in 2016 and 2017 were fun, they were full of filler that made the tapes hard to just throw on. Merry Christmas Lil Mama fixes this problem with a package that’s easy to play all in one sitting. It’s only twelve tracks and operates like a normal Christmas album that can sit in the background when you’re with family or doing things around the house. It’s incredibly cheesy and sometimes unbearable corny, but that’s how all good Christmas albums should be. Jeremih’s voice is so silky that it’ll grab everyone’s attention anyway.
Although the album is lighthearted, the songs are incredibly heartfelt and touching. On the album highlight “Family For,” Chance and Jeremiah are joined by a choir that beautifully backs them up as Chance raps about what he is thankful for. Even though his verse is delivered in a sing-song, jokey way, when he says, “Every time I go home / I hear a bunch of sirens” it brings him back to Earth.
Since many of these songs were released years ago, it’s interesting to see Chance and Jeremih’s evolution in the past three to four years. On “Snowed In” Jeremiah is doing his Late Nights era crooning until Chance joins him with his spoken word flow. It’s a teleportation to a different time, which makes the project feel even more like Christmas. Merry Christmas Lil Mama: The Gift that Keeps on Giving takes us back to a time that was filled with joy for both Chance and Jeremih.