Merry Christmas! Chance the Rapper and Jeremih drop surprise holiday mixtape

Just like Santa, Chance the Rapper arrived in the middle of the night with a Christmas gift. The rapper and multiple Grammy nominee teamed with fellow Chicago native and R&B singer Jeremih for a holiday-themed mixtape released in the dead of night.

“Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama” features nine holiday tracks that will keep your ugly-Christmas-sweater party bouncing. Comedian Hannibal Buress and rappers Noname and Lud Foe all lend guest vocals to the mixtape, which was released to SoundCloud early Thursday morning.

Chance and Jeremih, who have collaborated on previous projects, put a new spin on Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” and “I’m Your Santa” is tailor-made for a night of Chicago stepping under the mistletoe.

The mixtape opens with the iconic “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid” line from “A Christmas Story” — which takes on a deeper meaning given Chance’s continued efforts to curb rampant gun violence in his hometown — and also samples Art Mooney and His Orchestra’s “Nuttin’ for Christmas.”

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Dedicated to their city, the two were working on the project as recently as Monday, considering Jeremih’s Instagram post announcing the mixtape featured a photo from a studio session with Monday’s copy of the Chicago Tribune in plain sight.

Chance is in the midst of a major breakout. Earlier this year, he disrupted industry tradition when his last mixtape, “Coloring Book,” became the first streaming-only album to chart on the Billboard 200. The rapper rebuffs major labels and has yet to make his music available for purchase, releasing it to SoundCloud and for free digital download on the popular mixtape site DatPiff or in the case of “Coloring Book,” exclusively to Apple Music for a short window.

In June, the Recording Academy announced a rule change that now allows those releases to be eligible for Grammy consideration. As a result, Chance scored seven nominations, including for new artist and rap album.

“Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama” is his first release since “Coloring Book” and Jeremih’s first effort since “Late Nights: Europe.”

Listen to Chance and Jeremih’s Christmas surprise below, but there’s some mild language here — so don’t be a Scrooge and say we didn’t warn you.

For more music news follow me on Twitter:@GerrickKennedy