''SremmLife'' is the debut studio album by American hip hop duo

Rae Sremmurd Rae Sremmurd ( ; "Drummers Ear" spelled backwards) is an American hip hop duo originating from Tupelo, Mississippi, formed by two brothers, Slim Jxmmi and Swae Lee. In 2013, they signed a record deal with Mike Will Made It's EarDrummers imp ...

. It was released on January 6, 2015, by Ear Drummer Records and

Interscope Records Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture with Atlantic Records of Warner ...

. The album was supported by five singles: "

No Flex Zone "No Flex Zone" is the debut single by American hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd. It was released on May 18, 2014, by EarDrummers Entertainment and Interscope Records, as the lead single from their debut studio album ''SremmLife'' (2015). The song was pro ...

", "

No Type "No Type" is a hip hop song by American hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd. It was released on September 15, 2014, by EarDrummers Entertainment and Interscope Records, as the second single from their debut studio album ''SremmLife'' (2015). The song was ...

", "

Throw Sum Mo "Throw Sum Mo" is a song by American hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd featuring rappers Nicki Minaj and Young Thug. It was released on December 9, 2014, by EarDrummers Entertainment and Interscope Records, as the third single from the duo's debut studio ...

" featuring

Nicki Minaj Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty (; born December 8, 1982), known professionally as Nicki Minaj ( ), is a Trinidadian-born rapper based in the United States. She is known for her musical versatility, animated flow in her rapping, alter egos and accents ...

and

Young Thug Jeffery Lamar Williams (born August 16, 1991), known professionally as Young Thug, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He is considered to be an influential figure of his generation, with his music impacting the modern sound of hip ...

, "

This Could Be Us "This Could Be Us" is a song by American hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd. It was released on April 21, 2015 by EarDrummers and Interscope Records, as the fourth single from their debut album ''SremmLife''. The song was produced by EarDrummers-founder ...

" and "

Come Get Her "Come Get Her" is a song by American hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd. It was released on September 29, 2015, by EarDrummers and Interscope Records, as the fifth single from their debut album ''SremmLife''. The song was produced by EarDrummers-founder, ...

Background

Rae Sremmurd is a

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

-born hip hop duo composed of Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi. In 2014, the duo signed a

recording contract A recording contract (commonly called a record contract or record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote. Artists ...

with American music producer Mike Will Made It's newly found label, the

imprint, EarDrummers Entertainment.

Singles

The duo's debut single from the album, called "

" was released via digital download on May 18, 2014. The song was produced by Mike Will Made It, and co-produced by A+. The song gained media attention after the release of the

remix A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...

, which features guest vocals from rappers

and

Pusha T Terrence LeVarr Thornton (born May 13, 1977), better known by his stage name Pusha T, is an American rapper, songwriter and record executive. He rose to prominence as one-half of the hip hop duo Clipse, which was mainly active from 1994 to 201 ...

. The song peaked at number 36 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The album's second single, called "

" was released on September 15, 2014. Producer Mike WiLL Made-It also serves the production on this track, along with Swae Lee. The song peaked at number 16 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100. It was the number 70 song of the 2015 year-end chart. The album's third single, called "

" was released on December 9, 2014. The song features guest vocals from these fellow American hip hop

recording artist A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wr ...

s Nicki Minaj and

, with the production that was handled by

Soundz Kenneth C. Coby (born August 1, 1983), better known as his stage name Soundz is an American record producer and rapper from Milwaukee, Wisconsin signed to US Records and EMI Publishing. He was born to Charles and Lolita Coby, both former sin ...

and Mike WiLL Made-It. The song peaked at number 30 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The album's fourth single, "

" was sent to US

urban adult contemporary Urban adult contemporary, often abbreviated as urban AC or UAC, (also known as adult R&B,) is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have hip hop music ...

radio on April 21, 2015. The song's production was handled by Mike WiLL Made-It. The song peaked at number 49 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The album's fifth single, "

" was sent to US rhythmic radio on September 29, 2015. The song was produced by Mike WiLL Made-It, and co-produced by A+. The song peaked at number 56 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100.

Critical reception

''SremmLife'' received generally positive reviews from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

score of 78, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 15 reviews. Writing for ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

'', Eric Zaworski concluded that "''SremmLife'' sounds like how cheap vodka works — it burns a little, yeah, but it gets you there," explaining that the record "only further reinforces the vice grip hip-hop from south of the Mason-Dixon has on the mainstream." Justin Charity of ''

Complex Complex commonly refers to: * Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe ** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...

'' said "the chants and ecstatic poetry of ''SremmLife'' are fully charged from start to finish."

Year-end lists

All time lists

Commercial performance

''SremmLife'' debuted at number 5 on the US ''Billboard'' 200, with 49,000

equivalent album units The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditio ...

; it sold 34,000 copies in its first week, with the remainder of its unit count reflecting

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...

activity and

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

sales. In its second week, the album declined to number 17 with 23,000 units, including an additional 11,000 copies sold. It has remained on the album chart for 19 weeks thus far. As of June 2016, ''SremmLife'' has sold 198,000 copies domestically. With streaming and physical sales, the album has since gone Platinum and all of its singles have gone 2× Platinum or higher, with the promotional single "Up Like Trump" being certified Gold.

Track listing

Notes * signifies a co- producer. * "This Could Be Us" features additional vocals by Jace of Two-9. Sample credits *"This Could Be Us" contains a

sample Sample or samples may refer to: Base meaning * Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of ...

from "Burnin' Love" performed by Black Grass.

Personnel

Credits adapted from the album booklet and

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

. ;Performance *

– primary artists *Sean "

Big Sean Sean Michael Leonard Anderson (born March 25, 1988), known professionally as Big Sean, is an American rapper. Anderson began his music career in 2007 and gained popularity in 2010 with his third mixtape '' Finally Famous Vol. 3: Big''. He then s ...

" Anderson – featured artist *Jason "

Jace Jace or Jase is a masculine given name, often a shortened version of Jason, and more rarely a surname. People * Jace (artist), French graffiti artist Given name *Jace Alexander (born 1964), American television director and actor *Jace Amaro (born ...

" Harris – featured artist , additional vocals *Onika "

" Maraj – featured artist *Jeffery "

" Williams – featured artist ;Producers *Michael " Mike Will Made-It" Williams – executive producer, producer *Pierre "P-Nazty" Slaughter – executive producer *Rae Sremmurd – executive producers *Jeremy "BackPack" Miller – producer *Carlton "Honorable C.N.O.T.E." Mays – producer *Sonny "

Sonny Digital Sonny Corey Uwaezuoke (born March 5, 1991), better known by his stage name Sonny Digital, is an American record producer, rapper, and DJ.

" Uwaeauoke – producer *Kenneth "

" Coby – producer *Tyree " Young Chop" Pitman – producer *Asheton "A+" Hogan – co-producer *Marquel "Marz" Middlebrooks – co-producer *Khalif " Swae Lee" Brown – co-producer ;Technical *Todd Bergman – recording assistant *Maddox Chhim – mixing assistant *Aubry "Big Juice" Delaine – engineer *Stephen Hybicki – engineer , mixing *Maximilian Jaeger – engineer *Jaycen Joshua – mixing *Dave Kutch – mastering *Ryan Kaul – mixing assistant *Randy Lanphear – engineer *Marquel "Marz" Middlebrooks – engineer *Cody Seal – engineer *Pierre "P-Nazty" Slaughter – engineer *Gregg Rominiecki – engineer *Hakeem Wallace – engineer *Michael "Mike Will Made-It" Williams – mixing ;Miscellaneous *Ray Alba – publicity *Chelsea Blythe – A&R coordinator *Archie Davis – marketing *Khalfani "Fani" Dennis – stylist *DJ Mormile – management *Todd Douglas – business affairs *Jeremey "Migo The Plug" Ellis – management *Dan Friedman – management *Auro Harewood – digital *Max "Directed By Max" Hliva – videography *Stephanie Hsu – creative *Tracy Kies – business affairs *Justine Massa – creative *Chris Mortimer – digital *Aubrey "Aubz" Potter – style, merchandise *Gunner Safron – marketing *Pierre "P-Nazty" Slaughter – A&R *Manny Smith – A&R *Justin "JusDesignz" Thomas – graphic designer, cover art *Diwang Valdez – photography *Brian "Bwrightous" Wright – marketing, creative director

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 2015 debut albums Rae Sremmurd albums Southern hip hop albums Hip hop albums by American artists Interscope Records albums Albums produced by Honorable C.N.O.T.E. Albums produced by Mike Will Made It