Tis’ the season to bust out your favorite Christmas playlist, which I’m sure includes The Temptations, Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway. However, there are some bops by the white folks that need to be respected alongside the soul and R&B joints, alright?
Put some respect on Brenda Lee’s name, because if it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have been rockin’ around the Christmas tree. That song is one of the backbones of the holiday season, coming very close to (but never topping) Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.”
Now, some covers Black artists knocked out of the park. Nobody ate up “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” like The Jackson 5. Nobody.
But that’s beside the point. As much as we love some soul, check out 17 of our favorite Christmas songs by non-Black artists that still make it in our holiday playlist rotation.