Music from Queen Latifah and Mariah Carey has been added to the National Recording Registry. All Hail the Queen and Mariah’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” were named among 25 audio recordings deemed worthy of preservation for all time in the nation’s recorded sound heritage.
The addition of Queen’s debut album marks a history-making moment, as she’s the first female rapper to join the National Recording Registry. It showed the ability for rappers to cross genres and paved the way for other female rappers.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Mariah’s first entry in the National Recording Registry, shared the singer’s wish for the Christmas holiday following a turbulent childhood.
“I tried to tap into my childhood self, my little girl self, and say, ‘What are all the things I wanted when I was a kid?’” she said in a statement. “I wanted it to be a love song because that’s kind of what people relate to, but also a Christmas song that made you feel happy.”
“I’m most proud of the arrangements, the background vocal arrangements,” she added of the song behind her Queen of Christmas nickname. “‘All I Want for Christmas’ is sort of in its own little category, and I’m very thankful for it.”
Madonna‘s “Like a Virgin,” Daddy Yankee‘s “Gasolina” and the Super Mario Bros. theme were some of the other inductees in the National Recording Registry’s 2023 class.
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