I don’t think anyone had more fun in 2015 than the eccentric Atlanta duo Rae Sremmurd. The duo, comprised of Slim Jimmy and Swae Lee, is the evil lab creation of fellow Atlanta native and producer mastermind Mike Will Made It and are described best as a rap boy band. Their album, Sremmlife, is 11 songs of peak-party music that is infectiously catchy and only rarely annoying.
I had to put Sremmlife in my Fav Projects series because, god damn it, if I didn’t have a blast to at least 6 of these songs while intoxicated this year, I’d be a downright liar. I’m a sucker for music like Rae Sremmurd. It’s just with Rae Sremmurd, the leverage with having Mike Will behind the whole operation allows for divine consistency. The whole operation is just brilliant to me. In what many would consider an off-track in “This Could Be Us”, the duo manages to take a widely used joke on Twitter in “this could be us but you playin’” and make a catchy, easy to remember song revolving around the premise that I’m sure more than several early teenage girls dubbed “their song” this year. “Unlock The Swag” seemed so stupid the first time I heard it, I started laughing…but then I started dancing…and then I knew all the words.
Then there are the undeniable hits in “Come Get Her”, “No Type”, “Throw Sum Mo” and of course “No Flex Zone”. If you can’t admit these are purely fun, party anthems, take the stick from out of your bum. I’ll admit it: I hated “No Flex Zone” when I first heard it. I didn’t like Rae Sremmurd much either at first. No matter how much I tried to avoid them, however, I just couldn’t. Eventually, I realized I was hating on something because I saw an excess amount of 13 year old’s boasting about it. Once I put my sourpuss attitude away, the truth became clear. Rae Sremmurd is a group for having fun with the simple motto of “have fun”. The moment you try and make it any more than that is the moment you over analyze. If you still aren’t convinced that Sremmlife might be one of the best projects of the year, go out on New Year’s Eve and I bet you’ll hear at least one of its tracks.
You can stream Sremmlife on Apple Music and Spotify.
