Rae Sremmurd: A Night at the Hotel
From 10 Men Australia, 2019
Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi can’t stop dancing. Their flow is infectious. It’s 12am in Sydney, it’s the middle of a summer’s night, we’re exploring a hotel and they’re on top of the world. Tonight, this is their kingdom.
The world of Rae Sremmurd, Jxmmi tells me, would be filled with “loud, hot colours”. You can feel the heat through their wickedly good music that’s seen them become rap’s new royalty since their debut album, SremmLife, was released in 2015. Their beats pulsate, the melodies are smooth and they look good. It’s a perfect equation, a brilliant culmination of what hip-hop/rap and all that hypebeast culture is right now. “At night time the sky is probably pink,” Swae says of their world. “You drink the water in the air and the soil is edible.” The simple Sremm life.
The brothers grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi, with their mother and brother. “The person that inspires me is my momma,” says Jxmmi. “She worked hard. She had to work two jobs, could barely pay the rent but she never let it break her at any moment. Where we are, we now give it all back to her, you know what I’m saying? But she was definitely that one person who inspired me.” Music came naturally: Jxmmi began playing in bands in the sixth grade and Swae knew music was what they would pursue when they’d come home from shifts at McDonald’s – burger flipping served as great time to come up with the “best songs ever” – and go straight to their room to write songs. “We were like, ‘Yo, we would rather be doing this than the 9 to 5s.” And so in 2009 they formed a hip-hop band with a friend, Dem Outta St8 Boyz, composing and producing the music at home and then releasing dance videos on social media. In 2013, the brothers based themselves in Atlanta, meeting producer Mike Will Made-It, who signed them to his record label Ear Drummers, and Rae Sremmurd was born – say it backwards.
Through the hotel’s hallways, Swae’s falsetto cuts through the air and Jxmmi skateboards, full speed. There are no rules in this world. They do what they want and they wear what they want. Their attitude informs their style and their style has become intrinsic to their work. “My attitude is, I don’t give a... ” I tell him he can swear. “Oh! My attitude is I don’t give a fuck! I’ll put that shit on. It might have been in the girls’ section but it might t if the guy is slim enough to wear it, and luckily I’m a slim guy. If I like it, I’ll put it on. I don’t give a fuck. There ain’t nothing I won’t wear if I like it.” Boom. Yes, we like their attitude. They glide through the lobby, lounge on velvet chaises and get up on the bar. Everything they do is soundtracked, each moment choreographed into a routine, ready for their personal photographer, who chronicles every move for their social media, never missing a beat.
Swae sparkles in Saint Laurent and Jxmmi looks pretty in Prada. It’s about being fresh, Jxmmi says – “We’re always looking fresh... They’re saying that, just now, fashion is starting to be a big part of hip-hop but it’s been a big part. Way back in elementary school, our goal was to be the freshest kids in school. Stay fresh the whole year.” Fresh is the goal, the mindset and the motto for every day. “When I’m getting dressed, I have songs playing in my head and I feel like I’m in a movie,” Swae says. “If my outfit ain’t going with the song and the movie in my head, then I ain’t fresh enough.” The movie of their life is fast paced, full speed ahead and filled with fearlessness. What makes you fresh? “It’s in you, not on you,” Swae confirms.
The swag, the style, the smart, sharp, witty dance moves are all part of the performance. “One of the biggest influences for me was Prince,” Swae says. “Good music inspired me. It doesn’t matter who it was. I don’t put a limit on it if it’s good music. Something might influence us and we don’t even know it and it stays in my mind. I carry it with me.” They’re carrying it onto a generation of those dedicated to the SremmLife, very similar to Swae and Jxmmi, obsessed with hip-hop and their favourite artists and on the hunt for freshness. Who do they want to inspire? “People who feel like they can’t do anything,” Jxmmi says. “People who feel like there’s a ceiling or there’s a roof.” Adds Swae: “I want to inspire generations and generations of people.” I ask them what they would say to people they inspire who want to follow their path. “Smoke and mirrors,” Swae smiles. “Don’t put all your value on things that don’t matter,” Jxmmi says. “You’ll be trying to impress people and, at the end of the day, people don’t care about you. Do your thing, be yourself. Stay focused.”
We ride the mirrored elevators and sneak through the echoing fire escapes of this art deco hotel with the Sremm crew. In today’s hip-hop scene, there’s significant importance placed on an artist’s crew (Drake’s OVO crew, The Weeknd’s XO crew). The SremmLife crew are the people they keep around them, the “day one homies”, Swae calls them. “The people with the good vibes. People who push us, people who remind us to stay grounded. They’re people who push everything forward, who are optimistic.” The people who motivate them are integral to the best moment on their journey so far, which Jxmmi says is, without a doubt, “touring the world. Seeing different things. A lot of people where we’re from never even get to leave the city or, if they do leave the city, they don’t go that far – they might go to Texas, New Orleans, Alabama... We’re in Australia right now and we’re from Mississippi. That’s incredible. That’s the best achievement to me.” Touring the world, supporting themselves with their ideas, as Swae says, is unrivalled: “You have access to everything just off of your ideas. Just exercising your voice. Nobody else can take credit for what you did. You’re supporting yourself. It’s crazy. It’s dope.”
The Rae Sremmurd union will always be strong, despite ongoing rumours the pair are about to split to focus on their solo projects. Together, they make music that sets the foundation for what they believe in. Recently, they have featured on and written other artists’ music – they’re responsible for key lines on Beyoncé’s Formation, and Nicki Minaj is a frequent collaborator. “Writing for our own albums definitely fits us and what we’re talking about and our lifestyle. It’s harder to write for other people,” says Swae. “Something might come from your mind and it might not t the person you’re writing for. It’s really what you know and coming from your own experience. You can say what you write with so much more passion and you’re gonna say it more confidently because it’s what you really believe. It’s not like you’re trying to create an image – you’re writing the lyrics of shit you’re doing and seeing. It’s more authentic doing it for yourself as opposed to writing for other people.” That sense of trust between the brothers is evident when I ask who they’d love to have feature on the next album. “We don’t put any pressure on it because when we first came into the music industry we only made music with ourselves,” Swae says. “We weren’t relying on anybody else to complete ourselves.” Jxmmi adds that “working with other artists can sometimes be a disappointment. When it comes time to shoot the video and this or that, it can just lead to disappointment.” Swae agrees: “Yeah, the other artist might not like their verse later on [when they need to perform it] and you’ll just be like, ‘Fuck! I just put all that energy and creativity into a song and somebody’s not gonna meet me halfway?’ It’s like, damn, you’ve got a ghost on your song with you at that point. For real.”
Their energy is contagious, their confidence is key and they’re working hard. There’s a sweet synergy, a pumping adrenaline between them and their crew. The vision hasn’t changed, they know what they want and they’ve got it. What else do they want to achieve? “We want to make an album where no matter the amount of songs we’ve got, they all go platinum at the same time.” I tell them that’s definitely achievable. “Oh yeah,” Swae nods. “Definitely achievable.” It’s almost 3am, our night at the hotel is ending. The crew has successfully all received trims from the barber on set and the group is now organising to wake up at 8am to get tattoos in their hotel room. But before they sleep they’ll party a little, drink glittering pink Luc Belaire champagne and create more magic. The Sremm life is oh so sweet.