Monday Melodies: Afroman – “A Colt 45 Christmas” (2006)

One of the best parts of Christmas is that it kind of belongs to everyone. There is very little discrimination when it comes to who is allowed to use its likeness in any form of expression. You can be a Mall Santa of any race, creed, or gender. You can make a movie that’s Hallmark-levels of cute, or just make the big man a homicidal maniac. Everything that you could possibly want to do creatively has been done, and it’s both the greatest and worst thing about living through every December. On the one hand, it’s fun to know that someone out there thinks like you. However, you get so many Christmas albums that are superfluous, that cover the hits with uninspired aplomb. 

Though if we want to talk about superfluous Christmas albums, it feels best that we start with one that manages to break new ground in the genre. Compared to the milquetoast charm of someone like John Travolta, there’s Afroman. Of course, his career within itself is a miracle because he SOMEHOW is a Grammy nominee. In fact, to say why he made “A Colt 45 Christmas” is to quote the song that gained him the most popularity. Why man? “Because I Got High.”

For those who want to go down the path of one-note rappers, I think that few feel as basic as Afroman. Whereas there have been others who seem to fetishize excess, it really does feel like he has blunt smoke surrounding him, clouding his mind from any bigger skills. He’ll break up a rap just to laugh and watch the track fall apart. He’ll talk about oral sex only to snicker with the joy of a 15-year-old. To a certain demographic, it’s charming. To everyone else, he’s just the guy who sang “Colt 45 (Crazy Rap)” which exists mostly as a string of offensive sex jokes that target everyone from The KKK to Dolly Parton (whose breasts are full of Hennessey). It’s a miracle that he found any sustainable career. If you listen to “A Colt 45 Christmas,” it really does feel like a 26-minute version of “Because I Got High” with tinsel draped all over.

I’m not saying that it lacks pointless brilliance. If Afroman wants to continue making songs about having sex, drinking and smoking, and dealing with the police, then why not cruise down to the Christmas store and pick up a book of carols? I could imagine him sitting there with sheet music, a big marker in his hand, and crossing out lines as he wrote words like “titties” over them, thinking it was brilliant. This is the perfect form of an initiative for someone who is an underachiever and proud of it. There are no pretensions about this. Afroman made the album he wanted… even if it’s very pointless. 

I am not an expert on hip-hop Christmas albums. At most, I’m familiar with the Death Row Records compilation from the 1990s. Even that sounds like it was full of more nuanced than what we get here. Instead of creating something new and original, he creates something that he never could be: less than half-baked. With a backing track that’s largely hollow percussion and a guitar, he begins his journey through the classics, getting high off the fumes of the marker on that page, believing that he’s been blessed with a new holiday classic. He’ll play it for his mama at family get-togethers, and she’ll love that he’s not wasting his life.

Following a brief skit where Afroman and some unnamed friends pick up their sheet music, everything kicks off with the less than subtle “Deck My Balls.” Yes, it’s a play on “Deck the Halls,” which will immediately drop you into the vibe that this album will have:

Lick my balls with lots of saliva

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

'Tis the season to suck a drunk driver

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

There are 25 more minutes of this, folks. If you’re that 15-year-old who clearly still laughs at the idea of oral sex, then this album will be a haven. There’s so much laughter throughout these songs that destroy the beat. It’s the audio equivalent of crumpling up a paper and missing the trash can. The idea was already paper-thin, and the fact that most of these barely last a minute is both a miracle and a disappointment. Half the time it feels like Afroman isn’t doing enough to warrant this album. It’s not like “Because I Got High” where he cleverly subverted the lazy structure by making a song whose subject got continually worse, serving as some secret commentary on the perils of drug abuse… and all while laughing about it.

But no, there’s no subtlety here. If anything, it’s just Afroman fulfilling brand recognition. Much like his later remix of “Because I Got High” which was about legalized marijuana, this feels more like he’s hopping on a bandwagon and doing the bare minimum to put a stamp on it. Again, I think there’s something brilliant about it as brand recognition, but I also love that it’s both a singular Christmas album and also one of the dumbest things I’ve heard. You pretty much could’ve written this album yourself without listening. Afroman’s only genius is that he had the wherewithal to record it first.

I’ll give him this. When he’s talking about police brutality, he gets halfway to a more interesting archetype. With “Police Blow My Wad,” a play on “Feliz Navidad,” he asks the police officers to stop bothering him. It’s a good enough idea and one that builds scenery, even if the chorus lacks an extra oomph and it devolves into not wanting to get arrested because, alas, Afroman was high. 

It continues on one of the few highlights of the album, “The 12 J’s of Christmas,” which mostly gets that honor because it takes “The 12 Days of Christmas” and cleverly lists off what every Afroman song is about. Somewhere around “10 motherfuckers” the song falls apart, again highlighting just what this album is about. He’s not committed to a single idea. As they perform the standard countdown, the back-up singers are just talking, laughing, and arguing about how stupid this is.

One of the few positives, if it can be called that, about Afroman’s brand is that he is very sex-positive. Depending on how you read his music, he’s either using it as a celebration of interracial relationships, or it’s all comedy about how ridiculous every stereotype is. “Colt 45 (Crazy Rap)” is especially true of this, even if it’s transphobic and racist. Still, he’s like Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (1986). He’ll fuck anything that moves. In “Afroman is Coming to Town,” (a parody of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”) he goes so far as to suggest that he’ll accept a blow job from grandmomma because “A no-teeth blowjob feels real nice.” Is this a joke of how dominant his power is, or is there some deeper desperation to be loved? I really hope Afroman gets therapy at some point in his life.

Though yes, if you want evidence that this is an early 2000s mentality, just listen to “Frosty,” which is one elaborate play on “Frosty the Snowman.” The whole song I about how he has a “dick of snow” and could only have sex “if her pussy was really cold.” It proceeds to talk about how all girls seem to make his member melt. Still, amid an album that celebrates sex with geriatrics, there is one odd piece of homophobia:

Frosty the snowman was never able to come

He tried to fuck a queer 

The sun would appear and frosty had to run

Again, it’s interesting more to read these deflections more as something psychological about Afroman. Still, the idea of believing that gay sex is demeaning for a (presumably) straight person (or snowman) hasn’t aged well. Even his references to bitches and pussy throughout the rest of the song have more detailed descriptions than what he gives this “queer.” Was it a man? It sounds most likely. However, it could also be a woman since it tracks with everything else. Either way, the outcome lacks any satisfying defense.

I apologize for applying so much music theory to Afroman of all artists, especially on an album like this. I’m sure this article put more thought into everything than he did. However, I haven’t even gotten to the strangest moment. You can argue that there have been other artists who have written songs about Christmas sex and partying. You can argue that there are songs about getting locked up during the holidays. But, I promise you that the one thing that he’s a trailblazer for, much like his acceptance of geriatric sex, appears on “Let Her Blow.”

I’ll just let him tell you what the song’s about:

Fellas don't go psycho

When she's on her menstrual cycle

If you can't fuck the hoe

Let her blow, let her blow, let her blow

Never in my 31 years of listening to Christmas music have I found a song about women on their periods having to give oral sex. It’s actually astounding to believe that something like this exists and maybe the point where I regretted this whole exercise. Morbid curiosity has given me plenty of long-term unpleasant thoughts, and I can only hope this isn’t one of them. 

I’m not saying that menstrual cycles are gross. They’re natural and I’m sure a major concern to all women. It’s just that Afroman’s view of compassion for this time of the month is his latest shocking development. Oh sure, he’s quick to suggest that they’re allowed to change their pads, but he seems to suggest that they give better oral sex because of their periods. Sure, the whole joke is “Let her blow,” a play on “Let It Snow,” but he seems to revel in how awesome the pleasure is while shrugging off something deep down inside of him that suggests this may be the dumbest moment in his entire career.

But hey, if women want to do this with Afroman, more power to them. This is just a very male-dominated album and I don’t get the impression that he’s a Lothario who woos women of every age into bed. He’s not a wordsmith capable of that. Also, I bet he really reeks of marijuana and booze.

Comparatively, the closing stretch is unmemorable. “I Wish You Would Roll a New Blunt” is “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” meets “Don’t Bogart That Joint.” By now it sounds like Afroman is getting exhausted, trying to just do enough to meet the album’s requirements. “O Chronic Tree” is “O Christmas Tree,” and “Violent Night” is “Silent Night.” They’re all the same jokes we’ve been hearing for 20 minutes now, and none of it has an extra subtext that would make this worth listening to again. Even the lyrics lack something that you couldn’t just groan and hate yourself for listening to.

With “A Colt 45 Christmas,” Afroman broke new ground in making an album that is so distinctively his. Rarely will you find an album so obsessed with sex, booze and drugs, and federal offenses. Many rappers talk about these things, but only Afroman reduces it to their very essence, and it’s beguiling. You can’t believe that it exists, but that’s the only reason it kind of seems great. This is a gag he likely did to see who would take him seriously. I for one am probably being laughed at by him now for taking this whole thing seriously (thanks, by the way).

On the one hand, I discovered art that I otherwise wouldn’t have. Where else would I get “Let Her Blow” from? I pray that answer is never answered. Whatever the case may be, I understand why this is often ranked among the worst Christmas albums, even if I’d argue that it does something more ambitious and exciting than the boring covers albums we get annually. This at least offends, makes you roll your eyes at how tacky it is. It incites actual emotion. It may be bad, but it’s still unlike any other holiday release I’ve ever heard.