Earlier today, my esteemed friend and colleague Myles Tanzer, The FADER's news editor, made an important and convincing argument — that Patti LaBelle's 1996 performance at a White House Christmas tree lighting ceremony is the consummate holiday video. And I'll concede that it's an exceptional moment in history, characterized as much by Christmas cheer as it is by Auntie Patti's equal-parts deft and scrappy ability to turn lemons into a truly iconic three minutes.
But I'd like to see it, and raise it a DMX classic. At a radio appearance a few years ago, he delivered a heartwarming, refreshingly gritty a capella performance of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." There are no backup singers, no stage managers, no cue cards — just a boy standing in front of a girl, making plain his love for Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. Shout out to all the reindeer.
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Thumbnail Credit: Kevin Winter / Getty Images
