For those who are fans or at least familiar with Hannibal Buress, it's no surprise to see his name pop up in the credits of a big name artist's song here and there. Last year we saw him grace the piano driven ballad by BJ The Chicago Kid, "Nothing But Love." But last night, not only were we all surprised by the new Christmas mixtape from Chance the Rapper and Jeremih, we were even more surprised by the subtle Auto-Tune crooning and and signature laid back comedy offering from Hannibal Buress himself on the opening track of the mixtape, "All The Way."
Details have quickly emerged on his standout guest spot as he shares with us the tale of how extremely cold weather and three-years of friendship and collaboration allowed the feature to come to fruition in a new interview with Fader magazine.
According to the interview, Buress, who has known Chance since 2013, when they first met after collaborating on the "NaNaNa," music video, the whole thing was kind of spur of the moment.
I was in New York last week for a gig with Rockstar Games. I performed with Nas there. So I was gonna leave town after — I moved back to Chicago, actually. But it was super cold in Chicago. The uncomfortable cold. I’m a punk now, so about 25 to 30 degrees is my threshold. I was following the weather report and it was mostly 5 degrees and 0 degrees in Chicago. So New york wasn’t amazing, but it was more bearable than that. So I stayed and just hung out in my place in New York and played video games. And Chance was in town for SNL.
Next thing he knows, Chance hits him up in the middle of his hiatus from the polar vortex to come to 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.
And just like that, a hysterically awesome moment was shared between the worlds of comedy and hip hop. Buress explains that he even had bars for the project that didn't quite make the cut.
I actually had a verse for the title track, “Merry Christmas Lil' Mama,” that I started working on too. I had some bars for that, but they didn’t wanna make space for it. I might just have to take the beat and put out my own remix of it and ride the wave. I love juke tracks! I’m a Chicago dude, so whenever you make the song with the juke backbeat, it reminds me of being a teenager and shit.
Additionally, though the mixtape was only a few weeks in the making, Buress talks about how the years of collaborating with Chance and the growth the two have experienced factored into the equation telling Fader that, "In comedy, I’ve seen a lot my peers, and people that were younger than me or started after me — I’ve seen them go from new acts to being national acts, having TV shows, and getting in movies. But as far as seeing that close up with Chance, it’s been pretty crazy," going on to say that "Chance can do what he wants, man."
Back in Chicago now though, Buress is enjoying the city and its music more than ever, "Chicago music has been great this year: Chance, Vic’s project, Noname, Saba. There’s a lot of great music coming out of the Chi right now."
If you haven't yet, get into the holiday spirit with the Christmas Miracle that is Chane the Rapper and Jeremih's Merry Christmas Lil Mama.
