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Hip-hop artists have celebrated the holidays in their music for the past four decades, and they don't plan on stopping anytime soon.
In 1979, Kurtis Blow released the first-ever Hip-Hop holiday song "Christmas Rappin'." The energetic record inspired other artists to create other classic Christmas bangers that fans still play to this day from Run-DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" to DMX's rendition of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer." The late rapper made the song while he was up at Power 105.1 in 2012. X's version was so good that he formally released it in 2017.
Every year, we always hear the same Christmas jingles on the radio from the classic Bobby Helms song "Jingle Bell Rock" to the Queen of Christmas Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas." Fans can't get enough of timeless Christmas classics from John Legend, Alicia Keys, TLC and more. While some love hearing the same tunes repeatedly, we've got a special lineup of hits you probably don't hear too often during the holiday season.
Here are 25 rap songs that will get you into the Christmas spirit.
WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE
"Christmas In Hollis" Run-DMC (1987)
"Sleigh Ride" TLC (1993)
"Player's Ball" OutKast (1994)
"Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto" Snoop Dogg featuring Daz Dillinger, Nate Dogg, Tray Deee, and Bad Azz (1996)
"Ballin' On Xmas" Jim Jones (2006)
"A Pimp's Christmas Song" Snoop Dogg (2007)
"Ludacrismas" Ludacris (2007)
"Ghostface X-mas" Ghostface Killah (2008)
"A Pimp's Christmas Song" Snoop Dogg (2008)
"Christmas In Harlem" Ye, Teyana Taylor and CyHi (2010)
"How Sean Price Stole Christmas" Sean Price (2012)
"Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" DMX (2012)
"Merry Xmas" Fetty Wap featuring Monty (2015)
"3 Kings" Yo Gotti, Fabolous & DJ Khaled (2017)
"You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" Tyler, The Creator (2018)
"Nothing For Christmas" Slim Jxmmi & Eearz (2018)
"All I Really Want For Christmas" Lil Jon (2018)
"12 Days of Christmas" Gucci Mane (2019)
"Litmas" DRAM (2019)
"Ghetto Christmas" LVRN, 6lack & Summer Walker (2020)
"I'm Your Santa" Chance The Rapper (2020)
"Holiday" Lil Nas X (2020)
"Big Santa Papi" Lil' Kim (2021)
"I Want You This Christmas" Saweetie (2024)
"What A Christmas" NLE Choppa (2024)