Syleena Johnson wants to leave her mark on the Christmas holiday. The soulful singer-songwriter has released three Christmas soundtracks in the spirit of the holidays.
Santa Games, My Christmas Fiancé and All I Want For Christmas are now available on streaming platforms. Johnson is featured on one of the greatest hip-hop singles ever on Kanye West’s “All Falls Down,” a record Johnson was brought in to record because West couldn’t get a Lauryn Hill sample cleared. At the end of the song, West thanked Johnson and told her she saved his life like a seatbelt. In 2021, Johnson was featured on West’s Donda album.
Johnson spoke to rolling out about Ye’s recent comments in addition to her latest holiday projects.
What is going on with these three-holiday projects?
They are all attached to [Christmas] movies. The movies are coming out pretty soon. I don’t have the exact dates of the movies, but they’re on Hulu and Tubi. It’s a project filled with some of your favorite artists in R&B and some new amazing artists [in] R&B and hip-hop. We’re in an era where we sometimes, and I hate to say it, hear the same voices over and over again, it’s getting weird and boring. So what we had to do was bring the next generation of voices … the new year is coming. Everybody’s looking for new stuff, voices and everything. It’s perfect timing. The albums are amazing. It’s pretty much my first Christmas project ever.
Ye’s been in the headlines a lot lately and has been accused of being antisemitic. Where do you stand on Ye’s statements and the public’s reaction to them?
On “Cocktails With Queens” I’ve spoken out about this multiple times. It is official, I have deleted myself from the group chat. I no longer want to be involved in anything that pops up on the internet saying Kanye this, that and the third. Keep me out of it. I don’t want any parts of it. I don’t like what’s going on, just in general. It’s not just what he’s saying, but it’s also how he’s being exploited by the press. If he’s never spoken like this before, and then all of a sudden, he’s speaking like this now, it lends itself to being able to draw the conclusion something else is happening, other than him just being hateful. You feel me? So at some point, we as media outlets have to say, “Do we entertain somebody that could possibly be going through … something mental?” Or do we just keep doubling down on it, making everybody get mad about it [and] feel worse about it?
