“I wanted to take the bullshit out of the holiday,” David Banner says, talking from his house base in Atlanta. The MC and producer is explaining why “The Christmas Song,” which he launched in December 2003 to advertise his MTA2: Baptized In Soiled Water album, is just not your typical hip-hop vacation monitor. Usually, these songs are light-hearted affairs: Run-DMC’s basic “Christmas In Hollis” stars the trio discovering Santa’s misplaced pockets and supping egg nog with Jack Frost; Eazy-E’s “Merry Muthafuckin’ Xmas” options the gangsta rap pioneer dashing by way of the snow in a sweet purple low rider; DMX’s “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” is a weird mash up of thug rap flows and a jolly beat glistening with jingle bells. These songs are enjoyable and unabashedly foolish, they usually characterize the sentimental approach the season is bought to us. However the gnarly-voiced Banner’s gritty spin on the vacation was all about “representing the realities of an Atlanta Christmas during that time.”
Hearken to David Banner’s MTA2: Baptized In Soiled Water now.
“The Christmas Song” comes good on Banner’s promise. It sounds extra like a bleak Dickens fable relocated to the entice than something to make you need to canoodle below the mistletoe. The monitor begins with a baby’s voice: “Daddy, why don’t I have any presents like the other kids? I’m hungry.” It erupts right into a darkish and beastly story that contains a livid Banner stalking round city, robbing folks to offer for his child’s fundamental wants. Thunderous bass tones and eerie sleigh bells conjure a cutthroat vibe, which is topped by a hook that turns the Christmas carol “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” right into a plea to rob and steal – “‘Cause it’s Christmas time and we’re broke again, broke again.” Banner finally exits the monitor having gifted his child a bunch of presents, however with blood splattered throughout his shirt.
“We paint this euphoric picture of Christmas when a lot of times it’s very stressful, and we do an injustice to our children by not telling them the whole truth about things,” Banner says. “I’ve found statistics that robbing goes up around Christmas, first because people are buying a lot of stuff, so they have a lot of stuff to steal, and secondly because people are trying to steal stuff for their kids. So I wanted to paint a picture that we knew about.”
Whereas writing “The Christmas Song,” Banner was making weekly journeys backwards and forwards between his house state of Mississippi and town of Atlanta, whereas recovering from an unsuccessful label cope with Penalty Recordings as one half of the duo Crooked Lettaz. In Atlanta, Banner struck up a bond with one other upcoming MC in an identical scenario, Bone Crusher, who’d initially been signed to Tommy Boy as a part of the group Lyrical Giants and had but to make his solo breakthrough with the monstrous “Never Scared.” The 2 bonded over real-world struggles that impressed scenes in “The Christmas Song.”
“When the girl says ‘Daddy, I’m hungry,’ I remember a time when Bone Crusher’s daughter told him that,” Banner says. “Bone Crusher was like, ‘I’ve gotta go get it right now, you know what I’m saying?’ Those were the days before we were signed – I just wanted to tell a more realistic Christmas. We paint these pictures of ourselves and these holidays that are, in some cases, a lie: There is no fat white man coming down your chimney. But in order to keep the Christmas trees selling and making money off a lie in America, a lot of humans want to keep the lie going.”
There’s a visceral feeling of violence and anger working by way of “The Christmas Song.” It’s an environment that additionally peppers MTA2, which Banner calls “definitely my most aggressive album.” “Talk To Me” options Banner and Lil’ Flip going backwards and forwards over a wantonly atonal beat based mostly across the form of screeching tone previous dial-up modems produce, a remix of “Like A Pimp” showcases Twista and Busta Rhymes spitting boisterously and at warp pace, whereas “Mamma’s House” pairs horror film piano stabs with Banner in ultra-violence mode: “Bullets fly through the air, tell them crackers to die / I’m the trillest, clack-up, peel it / Dumping slugs ’til you feel us.” (Similar to “The Christmas Song,” the album’s different lead single, “Crank It Up,” is offended and brooding and extra more likely to begin a ruckus within the membership than immediate a celebration.)
Banner seems to be again on a number of 2003 as being “some really hard times.” However he additionally remembers how the yr was “paramount for the South” and a respectable breakthrough time for the area. The affect of Lil Jon’s “Get Low” was persevering with to bubble by way of the mainstream, Bone Crusher had golf equipment on lock with “Never Scared,” and Ludacris consolidated his standing as a bona fide star with a run of punchline-packed singles from Hen-n-Beer that included “Stand Up” and “Splash Waterfalls.” Banner’s personal Mississippi: The Album, which was launched in Might that yr by way of Steve Rifkind’s SRC label, was additionally spreading his status because of the success of tracks just like the cocky, swaggering membership hit “Like A Pimp” and the redemptive, acoustic guitar-laden “Cadillacs On 22s.”
Past the hits and Platinum plaques, the south additionally asserted its artistic streak in 2003. “I personally believe we were doing things musically during that time that was way before its time, especially sonically, like with the instruments me and Lil Jon were using,” Banner says. “I don’t think Southerners get credit for the things we were doing and the fact we weren’t sampling in most cases: They were real instruments, and we didn’t take credit for other peoples’ artwork – we came up with our own art.”
One rapper to learn from Banner’s manufacturing artwork was T.I., the Atlanta MC who was bouncing again from an unfruitful spell at Arista Data and readying the discharge of Lure Muzik – an album that sailed to Platinum standing off the again of “Rubber Band Man,” which was based mostly round an infectious ballpark organ beat crafted by Banner. “If I knew ‘Rubber Band Man’ was that dope, I would have kept it for myself,” Banner says with fun. “I have to give credit to T.I. for that – he knew what it was. It’s funny, we’ve been tied to each other in some kind of way, whether it’s the politics now or the music then, there’s always been some kinda connection between me and TI.”
“I remember, T.I. told me at the time [of ‘Rubber Band Man’] how he was in a similar situation to me stepping away from the deal he had with I’m Serious [released on Arista in 2001]. He was like, ‘I’m starting over, can I give you 25 hundred for this track? If you give it to me, I’m gonna change your life with it.’ And we did. That song is what made me a Platinum producer.”
Together with many rappers from the south, 2003 modified Banner’s life in a dramatic approach. Wanting again, he says, “I went from homeless to being a millionaire in two weeks.” However regardless of including further zeros to his financial institution steadiness, the short ascent and success additionally got here with stresses he wasn’t ready for. “Going from sleeping in your van to being a millionaire, and in that same year having only a small cross-section of people knowing you to people knowing you all over the world, and having the pressure of the streets, the pressure of taxes, the pressure of family, plus keeping up that level of success where you’ve never had to keep it up constantly before… Those times are really cloudy and very stressful.” As if channeling the lesson of “The Christmas Song,” Banner provides, “But I’d rather have money stress than broke stress.”
Hearken to David Banner’s MTA2: Baptized In Soiled Water now.
Editor’s be aware: This text was initially printed in 2018.
