04 Apr Wild Facts About Rae Sremmurd

Mississippi’s hell-raising brothers Slim Jxmmi and Swae Lee are headed to South Florida to perform on Saturday at SunFest. Digging into the history and antics of Rae Sremmurd (pronounced Ray-Shrim-er) left me overwhelmed by information— some facts so outrageous that I found myself laughing in admiration.

Today, I’ll share a few of my favorite facts about this duo.

1. Swae Lee owns two tiny monkeys. In a new Rolling Stone profile, we learn Swae has a pet spider monkey named Lil G, and a Capuchin monkey named Naya. Lil G cost $20,000 and wears a tiny diaper. Swae also owns two dogs and two-mini pigs. My favorite quote from Swae is in reference to these two pigs.  “The pigs are ‘on a farm out somewhere towards the desert so they can be happy and terrorize stuff,’ [Swae] says. ‘They ran around my old crib, biting everything, tearing up couches.’”
2. There’s a big update coming this Friday, April 6, around the upcoming album Sr3mm, as teased by Swae Lee on social. We recently learned that guests on the anticipated album include Young Thug, Future, Travis Scott, and the endlessly-talented Zoe Kravitz. In that same Rolling Stone piece, Jxmmi shared the brothers were introduced to Kravitz through mutual friends. “I wrote her verse,” Jxmmi said. “She’s savage. She’s cool. She smokes. Her feature price about to go up.” What can you expect Friday? Maybe a new single, or the official tracklist and release date.
3. It was earlier this year, that Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi announced they would release their solo albums, Swaecation and Jxmtroduction, as part of their album Sr3mm.
4. Rae Sremmurd is best known and loved for their hit “Black Beatles,” off their album Sremmlife 2. “Black Beatles” peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, and also charted internationally.
5. “Black Beatles” is also the official/unofficial song of the popular mannequin challenge meme. “Everything just kind of happened perfectly,”  Gunner Safron from Interscope Records told PigeonsAndPlane. “Slim Jxmmi and Swae Lee saw the [Mannequin] Challenge, they did it at the show that night, it went online, people picked it up, and then it was our job to service it out to as many people as possible and make sure that the association with that challenge was with the music. Everybody from the management, to the artist, to what we were doing on the backend really aligned and it really hit.
6. What’s in a name? Rae Sremmurd is derived from American record producer and songwriter Mike Will’s production team called “Ear Drummers.” Flip that backward and you have Rae Sremmurd.
7. Rae Sremmurd’s breakthrough hit “No Flex Zone,” has been praised for its playfulness. The brothers notably performed it in Austin, Texas back in 2014 during SXSW. (They also took time to ambush a few Future sets.) “No Flex Zone” was eventually certified platinum. What’s most impressive is five of the 11 tracks on the boys’ debut album became radio singles.

There’s so much more, but these are the highlights I have for you today. Friendly reminders to get your SunFest tickets now, and request time off of work! I’ll see you soon, South Florida.