Being Christmas and all, it's only natural that performers across the rap game broke out of their cynical fronts and delivered messages of hope and joy in order to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Yeah, right.
Two of the performers featured on Music Times' albums of the year list, Eminem and Run The Jewels, were busy in the days leading up to the holiday, providing bizarre and somewhat disturbing productions for fans.
Eminem didn't put as much work into ruining Christmas, but the shot he posted on Instagram on Wednesday probably secured his place on the naughty list (as if he wasn't there already). The picture featured the emcee dressed in Santa garb (minus the beard, unfortunately), mimicking relations with a deer from behind. It was a joke in line with "turn of the century Shady," as described by Music Times writer Caitlin Carter.
Run The Jewels (the hip-hop duo of El-P and Killer Mike) recreated a number of holiday scenes in a music video for the (in)appropriately titled "A Christmas F---ing Miracle."
Among the themes worked into the video: Killer Mike as a mall Santa and El-P as his elf, as two children destroy the set...The pair drinking in an ice-fishing shack in Lake Placid during 1980 (Mike sports a medal from the apparent Winter Olympics reference). Most impressive is the Christmas Carol knockoff, seemingly shot in Brooklyn during one of New York's few snow days during 2013. El plays the role of Tiny Tim, and Mike (as Ebenezer Scrooge) knocks him to the ground. The Ghost of Christmas-Yet-To-Come makes a later appearance for a guitar solo.
Those well-versed in El-P's discography will recognize the puppet squirrel featured in the satire Nativity scene as Mr. Killums, the same one-eyed, hard partying rodent featured in the rapper's video for "The Full Retard" during 2012.
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