‘Hood’ Christmas caroling and the fine line between playfully obnoxious and intentionally offensive
OPINION: Sometimes engaging in offensive Christmas shenanigans because you can is all the reason you need.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
It’s Christmas time in African America. The sounds of Donny Hathaway’s perennial classic “This Christmas” or The Temptations rendition of “Silent Night” can be heard in stores, coming out of car windows and blasting at top volume during Christmas gatherings. Mariah Carey’s annual Christmas wormhole, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is the soundtrack to many a shopping excursion, no matter what retailer you venture to or where it is in America. And if you’re lucky, you might even hear some Christmas carolers roaming your neighborhood or downtown, dressed in all of the usual Christmas accoutrements but singing songs more likely to play at Trap Karaoke or the club than your kid’s school Christmas pageant.
Such is the world we live in nowadays, where social media and creativity often converge, giving us new and enjoyable ways to engage with tried-and-true traditions. Sometimes it’s brilliant and novel; last year in Washington, D.C., many of the women in my wife’s organization — District Motherhued — rolled through the city’s downtown and were caught on video singing Tevin Campbell’s “Can We Talk” at the top of their lungs. Video of them was all over D.C.’s Instagram and TikTok pages. Why? Because while people are used to seeing Christmas carolers, they’re not used to seeing Black women in Christmas onesies singing ‘90s R&B hits instead of “Jingle Bells.”
Other times, it can leave you feeling conflicted. Such is the case of a recent video and TikToks of a group out of Memphis doing what they call a “Ghetto Christmas Carol” prank. For the record, they’ve done this for a few years now, but it is my first time becoming aware of the prank. And while they call it a prank, I’m not quite sure that’s the right word for it. But we’ll get back to that.
Long story short, a content creator named Sean Odigie gathers some of the homies together to practice and perform renditions of what most would call ratchet songs in a Christmas carol manner. For instance, in this 2024 video, they’re doing songs by GloRilla like “TGIF” — a song I absolutely love — and others by Sexyy Red, among others. Their prior videos got so popular that even NLE Choppa got in on it.
Now look, I’m all for having fun — and turning a time-honored tradition like Christmas caroling into a showcase for shenanigans is right up my alley. But there’s a point where it can just become offensive. It’s playfully obnoxious to show up at the mall or Walmart (in their case) and sing non-Christmas songs at the top of your lungs, complete with ad-libs and dance numbers. It’s another thing to show up and sing songs that most of us don’t want our kids listening to in places where our kids are gathering. Especially when you don’t HAVE to do obscene songs in order to get the same effect.
Sexyy Red doesn’t have a single song that is fit for any family environment. And I like Sexyy Red but there’s a time and place for her. I’m not saying every song has to be the safest song of all time; shock and awe are the point of this “prank.” Nevertheless, I’d always suggest that they find the songs that toe the line so as to not have people ready to call the police for being a public nuisance. Mind you, this group is not the only one to do this; every year lots of people, and content creators especially, get into the spirit of Christmas carol shenanigans and pranks.
Also, what makes doing this a prank anyway? There’s no “gotcha” in this scenario at all. It is done purely to disarm by being carolers who then disrupt by singing the most obscene songs possible in front of amused Black people and uncomfortable white people. Is it amusing? Yes, very much. But if I were one of those folks shopping and I had my kids in tow, I’d have been annoyed — not into action, but I would have moved on because, at some point, the joke gets old real quick.
When my wife’s group sang “Can We Talk,” it got the attention of lots of people for the sheer spectacle of it. Who carols with R&B jams? But it also is kind of cool to see people turn things on their head to create new fun. But if your aim is to be as inappropriate as possible, what new fun does that actually create? Like what’s the point? Is it purely to shock people? If so, to what end? What does rapping lyrics to the most lewd songs at Walmart prove or demonstrate? I suppose sometimes doing the thing because you can is all the reason you need.
Maybe I’m just getting old. I feel like 25-year-old, single, childless me would get a kick out of seeing that, even as I watched some parents try to usher their kids away as quickly as possible. I would have taken great joy in the manager of some store trying to stop the “carolers” as they got louder and more obnoxious for the sake of it. But I’m 45 now and prone to ask “What’s the point?” about a lot more things now. It’s giving white, frat boy levels of obnoxiousness, a version that most Black people can’t stand and even white people find annoying. Being offensive for the sake of it stops being entertaining really shortly after everybody gets the gag.
There’s so much raunchy R&B music out nowadays that’s sitting right there to give the Christmas carol treatment that might not even be noticed by the folks who aren’t on TikTok or into current rap and R&B. They could jam out to some of those songs that are filled with innuendo, often not covert at all, and the confused faces all around would be smiling while trying to figure out what’s happening. When you sing and rap songs about genitalia, well, lots of people get it and get over it real quickly and are simply annoyed that their shopping or whatever is being disrupted.
I know young people are going to do young people things and they should; I just think that there’s a better way to do this that doesn’t have to be so intentionally offensive for the sake of it while still achieving the goal of “pranking” people.
Then again, maybe I’m just getting old.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
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