On Friday (Oct 30), Epic Records released Epic Presents: Holiday Radio, a 14-track Christmas compilation whose eleventh song is called "X-Mas in the A." The track belongs to Jawan, with features from Breskii and Keri Hilson, the Decatur, Georgia, singer who spent the mid-2000s writing hits for other people inside an Atlanta collective called The Clutch. One of her partners in that room was Ezekiel Lewis, who now runs Epic.

Lewis, an Alabama native who studied at Morehouse College in Atlanta, co-founded The Clutch in 2004 with Hilson, Candice Nelson, Patrick "J. Que" Smith and Balewa Muhammad. The group wrote records for Ciara, Omarion and Britney Spears before Hilson stepped out front as a solo act. His name sits in the composer credits of her 2009 debut, In a Perfect World..., the album that brought her a Best New Artist nomination. A second Grammy nod came for "Knock You Down," her single with Kanye West and Ne-Yo. Lewis later crossed to the executive side, spending six years as senior vice president of A&R at Motown before Epic brought him over to run its own A&R department.

When Sylvia Rhone promoted him to president of the label in June 2023, she pointed to the years he spent writing songs as the qualification. "Having been a hit songwriter and producer for many years, Zeke brings an invaluable understanding of the artist's creative journey," Rhone said in the announcement. Sony Music named him chairman and CEO on March 30 of this year, after Rhone stepped down, which makes Holiday Radio the first Christmas compilation Epic has released with Lewis in the top job.

Hilson went 14 years without a new single before she self-released "Bae" in 2025 as the lead-in to her third album, We Need to Talk. Her verse on an Epic holiday record, in a song named for the city where she and Lewis built their catalogs, is the sharpest piece of casting on the compilation. Epic's announcement pitches the set as a broad snapshot of its roster and never mentions the history.

That roster reads differently once you sort it by who got which kind of song. Six of the 14 titles are standards older than everyone singing them, among them Meghan Trainor's "Frosty the Snowman," SHOOP's "Blue Christmas" and Mimi Webb's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Donny Hathaway wrote "This Christmas" with Nadine McKinnor and released it as a single in 1970. UMI takes it on in what Epic calls an acoustic arrangement, and five of the six standards went to singers the label put in its headline billing. The titles that do not come from the songbook mostly sit with acts the label files under its most promising rising artists. That group includes H3RIZON's "Kiss Me Before Midnight," N3WYRKLA's "Coming Home" and YoDogg's "Naughty for You" with AKIA.

The exception at the top of the bill is "Milk N Cookies," the only original that pairs two established names. Coi Leray owns two Grammy nominations, one for "Players" and one for her David Guetta collaboration "Baby Don't Hurt Me", and she has made Christmas music before. She joined Dess Dior and Maliibu Miitch on "Merry Xmas" in 2020, then cut a holiday version of "TWINNEM" with a gospel choir the following December. Miitch, as it happens, put out her own debut album, Sailor Goon, on the same Friday that Holiday Radio arrived.

Leray's duet partner is Lucky Daye, who won the Grammy for Best Progressive R&B Album with Algorithm and who is not an Epic artist at all. He released his new album, ALOUD!, through Warner Records on Oct. 16, two weeks before Sony's label used him on the one star-powered original in its holiday package.

Some of the covers carry history from inside the building. In 2014, Epic released I'll Be Home For Christmas, a seven-song EP curated by L.A. Reid, with Fiona Apple singing "Frosty the Snowman" alongside Fifth Harmony and Tamar Braxton. A young Meghan Trainor was on that EP too, with "I'll Be Home," a song she wrote and produced herself. Twelve years, a Best New Artist Grammy and a seventh studio album called Toy With Me later, Trainor is the one singing "Frosty" for the label.

GIVĒON also arrives with a carol he has handled before. The Grammy-nominated singer recorded "O Christmas Tree" for Apple Music in 2020, and his version of "The First Noel" first surfaced about two years later as an Amazon Music exclusive, according to REVOLT's reporting. His contribution lands at track 13 in a year that brought Beloved Act II and a Best Male R&B/Pop Artist nomination at the BET Awards, a category Leon Thomas won in June.

Mariah the Scientist, another Atlanta native, takes on "Please Come Home for Christmas," the blues Charles Brown released in 1960 and the Eagles carried into the Top 20 nearly two decades later. She releases music through her own Buckles Laboratories imprint in partnership with Epic. She also already has a holiday heartbreak song of her own, since "Christmas In Toronto" in December 2022 used the season as the backdrop for a relationship coming apart. Her 2026 included five BET Award nominations, with Hearts Sold Separately up for Album of the Year and "Burning Blue" up for Video of the Year.

Atlanta runs through the back half of the tracklist as well. Johnny Venus, one half of EarthGang, released his debut solo album, The 11th Hour, on Oct. 9 through SinceThe80s and Epic, with The-Dream serving as executive producer. His holiday entry, "Give Love on Christmas Day," carries the title of the song the Jackson 5 recorded for Motown in 1970, which Johnny Gill, New Edition and Muni Long have all sung since. Breskii, Hilson's partner on "X-Mas in the A," was one of the voices on Metro Boomin's "Take Me Thru Dere." That record, cut with Quavo, YK Niece and DJ Spinz, made this summer's BET Awards ballot.

The Jackson 5 connection runs back into Epic's own vault. The Jackson brothers left Motown for Epic in 1975, and the label released Michael Jackson's Thriller in 1982, which Epic's own boilerplate still counts as the best-selling album of all time. Fifty-six years after the brothers first recorded "Give Love on Christmas Day" for Berry Gordy's company, the title comes back through Epic in the voice of an Atlanta rapper in his first solo season.

The compilation also reaches well past R&B and rap. Duncan Laurence, who won Eurovision for the Netherlands in 2019 with "Arcade," sits second on the tracklist with "Our Christmas." The British singer Mimi Webb closes the album on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the standard Judy Garland introduced on film in 1944. BIA and Black Fortune's "Buy What You Want (Christmas)" sits between "X-Mas in the A" and GIVĒON's carol, so a rap record about spending separates the Atlanta reunion from "The First Noel."

Epic's 2014 holiday set ran seven songs and carried its chairman's name as curator. This one doubles the length and places the Clutch reunion at track 11, after Trainor, Leray and Mariah the Scientist have already played. Whether Hilson's verse becomes more work on the label Lewis now runs is a question the compilation leaves for next year.

TRACKLIST

Meghan Trainor - “Frosty the Snowman”
Duncan Laurence - “Our Christmas”
Coi Leray ft. Lucky Daye - “Milk N Cookies”
H3RIZON - “Kiss Me Before Midnight”
Mariah The Scientist - “Please Come Home for Christmas”
SHOOP - “Blue Christmas”
UMI - “This Christmas”
N3WYRKLA - “Coming Home”
Johnny Venus - “Give Love on Christmas Day”
YoDogg ft. AKIA - “Naughty for You”
Jawan ft. Keri Hilson and Breskii - “X-Mas in the A”
BIA & Black Fortune - “Buy What You Want (Christmas)”
GIVĒON - “The First Noel”
Mimi Webb - “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”