Convincing Run-DMC to celebrate Christmas in Hollis
“Jack Frost chillin’, the hawk is out / And that’s what Christmas is all about…”
When asked to contribute to 1987’s benefit album A Very Special Christmas—featuring several artists to benefit the Special Olympics—Run-DMC at first turned it down, worried that doing a cover song would make them come across as fake. But publicist Bill Adler brought the group’s DJ Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell), a bunch of records, hoping to inspire them to come up with something new. Eventually, Jay came across Clarence Carter’s 1968 R&B track “Back Door Santa,” which caught his attention.
Adler told The New York Post, “Run and DMC were in the next room and came in, as if they’d been drawn to the scent of a big Christmas pie or something. They nodded at Jay, and everybody knew that was going to be the sample.”
Now ready to record something with a personal spin for the benefit album, they also sampled “Frosty the Snowman,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Joy to the World.”
The music video for “Christmas in Hollis” takes place at both the North Pole and in Hollis, Queens, the NYC neighborhood where the members of Run-DMC grew up. Featuring cameos from Santa Claus, an elf, and DMC’s adoptive mother Bannah McDaniels, the video won Rolling Stone’s 1987 Best Video of the Year award. Watch the video here…
Hip hop group Run-DMC, founded in 1983 by Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Mizell, is one of the most influential acts in the history of hip hop. In fact, Run-DMC is the first rap act to have reached a number of major accomplishments—including first hip hop act to chart in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 more than once; first hip hop artist with a Top 10 pop charting rap album; first hip hop act to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine; first hip hop act to make a video appearance on MTV; and first hip hop act to perform at a major arena.
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