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Death Row Records Made a Christmas Album?

Authored by Scott Goldberg on December 20, 2006 - 5:37am.
At a Christmas decorating party I recently attended, the host played a homemade holiday compilation disc. When I realized within the opening stanza of the first song that it was not Alvin & The Chipmunks but The Beatles, I was surprised, though less so than I was for the songs that followed. Soon there was Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Christina Aguilera, Kurtis Blow, Whitney Houston, and a tune from Phil Specter’s album, “A Christmas Gift to You”. But then came a moment of surprise similar to taking a sip of water from a straw only to find a Jack & Coke. Silky smooth over the stereo came the one and only Snoop Dogg, singing a song called, “Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto.”

I nearly choked on my drink. A sampling of the holly jolly lyrics he put down went like this:

It's 12.30 AM Christmas Eve
I'm out with the gangstas and thieves
Celebratin' postin' up with eggnog

I had heard enough. I found a computer and Googled “Snoop Dogg Christmas,” and found a link to the album “Christmas on Death Row”.

“Death Row made a Christmas album?” I thought. Along with Snoop Dogg on the album was Nate Dogg singing a song called “Be Thankful,” and Sean Barney Thomas singing “Party 4 Da Homies.”

I found myself repeating the question, “Death Row made a Christmas album?” as I returned to the party, expecting to discuss the topic with others sharing my surprise. But everyone just hummed, and danced, and smiled, and touched glasses, and took long looks at the angles of the stockings, and contemplated the next necessary location to hang an ornament, and I kept thinking, “Death Row? Death...Row? They made a Christmas album? Death Row made a Christmas album? Suge Knight made a Christmas album?”

The man who sang the famous lines:

Just like I thought
They were in the same spot
In need of some desperate help
But Nate Dogg and the G-child
Were in need of something else

also takes time every December to “Be Thankful?”

And that’s when I realized that the Christmas music genre is the design of a genius. If you have a name, regardless of its reputation, you can sell a Christmas album. It’s the season of anything goes, and God bless it.

Here’s a sample from The Dogg Pound’s “I Wish”:

Please help me out
Cuz this is my last days
And if I die today
I'm goin’ to hell

Don’t you feel the spirit?!

Scott Goldberg

To read more articles by Scott click here.
tags: Music | Commerce | Rap | Retail | Hip Hop | Holidays | Scott Goldberg | Death Row Records | Christmas |



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