“I Shoulda Left You”

The Christmas present you did not know to ask for because you could not have reasonably fathomed its existence: Jeremih singing, with measured resolve, “Fuck 2016.” And a couple of verses later, on “I Shoulda Left You”—a loping highlight of his and Chance the Rapper’s great, surprise holiday tape, Merry Christmas Lil’ Ma—the younger artist proclaims, “Rest in Peace to great David Bowie/Please can we get Prince back?” On this spirited epilogue to a profoundly despairing year, two masters of relief tie a bow around 2016 and prepare to leave it under the tree. Over the wistful boom of a fittingly concrete-heavy Zaytoven beat, Chance, as ever, grins most widely; his fun is not over yet. The unsparing chorus—“Shoulda! Left! You! In! 2016!”—contains all the pithy ebullience of an emoji-punctuated aphorism, suspended on high, sounding not slightly akin to, say, Lil Uzi Vert. With that, “I Shoulda Left You” unwraps another gift: a prayer for 2017.