When Chance The Rapper and Jeremih’s Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama mixtape released on Wednesday night, listeners were greeted by the very familiar voice of Hannibal Buress on the first track, “All the Way.” The collab happened solely because the comedian was in the right place at the right time, according to a newly publish interview with Fader.
As the story goes, Chance was in New York City for SNL and Buress was somewhat trapped there as well since he wasn’t to eager to go home to the frigid temps in Chicago at the time. Once Chano found out the comedian was in town, he made the call for Buress to come through the studio and lay down some vocals.
“I’m like, “Does that mean rap?” Because, I mean. He’s like, “Whatever, come through.” So he’s working on this Christmas project with Jeremih and he asked me to talk about Christmas at the end of this track. He loops it up and I just go in and talk for a few minutes. On my podcast lately I’ve been really obsessing with Auto-Tune. A title too late, but I’m really getting into it. So I jokingly just tell them to Auto-Tune my shit and put Travis Scott vocals on my shit. And they cut it up and that’s that.”
The end result was an entertaining outro by Buress, but it wasn’t his only contribution to the album. He indicates he has a verse for “Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama” that didn’t make the cut, but we may end up hearing it at some point. “I might just have to take the beat and put out my own remix of it and ride the wave,” he said.
Buress and Chance’s relationship extends all the way back to 2013 with Buress making an appearance in his fellow Chicago native’s video for “NaNa.” Since then, Chance has ascended to the top of the pack in rap, something his friend marvels at.
“[A]fter Acid Rap shit got pretty crazy, but to see the level now is wild,” Buress said. “The dude did US Cellular Field, where the White Sox play! Chance can do what he wants, man.”
Listen to “All the Way” below and check out the full mixtape right here.
