Art imitates life; life imitates art. That's a theory first proposed by Aristotle, suggesting the fluid two-way street between culture and day-to-day life. Were Migos the first to dab, or were they just a nationally-influential platform for a hyper-regional craze that started before they got wind of it? Were Sugarhill Gang the first to say "I said a hip, hop, a hippity hop," or was it already a go-to lyric for many early rappers?
These lines become even more blurred when we look at how our rapidly-advancing technology influences art (or vice versa). All the way back to Prince's constant use of "U" and "2" for shorthand of "you" and "to," musicians reflect and affect the way contemporary kids talk and interact online. From the early dot com era we've got Britney Spears' "Email My Heart"; a few years later, internet pioneer Soulja Boy styled an album title as a URL address, then will.i.am actually turned his name into the URL of his website. Big Sean later had his style deemed "hashtag rap" due to the way he'd end a bar with a pause, and then a one-word punchline ("You're the type to get wet... diapers").
References to tech, digital interaction, and online slang are now a dime-a-dozen, from Yo Gotti's "Down in the DM" to Lil Uzi Vert's recent hook that breaks down his social media preferences. Among the leaders of this new school are Rae Sremmurd, who predate Uzi and fellow king of the internet-loving teens, Lil Yachty, by a few years, but are perhaps the rappers who are most connected to one subset of the online world: memes. The chicken-egg question arose early for them, with their first few singles starting memes of their own, and their next playing off an already-established one.
Our new cover stars just dropped their sophomore album, Sremmlife 2, last night, and due to the fact that there's a handful of meme references on there too, we're stacking up five times Slim Jimmi and Swae Lee either started or piggybacked on an online joke.
No Flex Zone
With their first single, Rae Sremmurd also notched the only meme they've ever actually taken credit for creating. In addition to every rapper and their mother dropping freestyles over this inescapable hit in summer 2014, we quickly saw a slew of referential memes pop up, from a mock "Keep Calm and ___" poster, to fake North Face logos, to basically every other popular meme floating around the internet at the time. The boys had arrived.
As Swae Lee said in the song, he's a trendsetter.
This Could Be Us (But You Playing)
The fourth single from Sremmlife is definitely inspired by the #ThisCouldBeUsButYouPlayin hashtag, which reached its peak almost a year before the song dropped. Unlike the other references that follow this one on the list though, the entire song is based off the reference, as Swae and Jimmi laugh off a girl who doesn't know how good she could have it. Although it's been over two years since we first saw the meme pop up, it's still very much in use.
No Chill
At this point, "no chill" has almost passed the point of meme into cultural ubiquity, but Know Your Meme dates it to 2013, when it first started popping up on Twitter. We saw Vic Mensa and Skrillex drop a song that bore the same name last year (shortly after Vic's similarly meme-y "U Mad," I might add), but Sremmurd's own use of the phrase came on the duo's appearance on DJ Esco's Project E.T. just a few months ago. On "Party Pack," Jimmi says "When I'm on that D'usse, I ain't got no chill," which is a pretty insignificant use of a meme by Sremmurd standards, but no less a product of webspeak.
Get You A Man Who Can Do Both
Compared to other memes, this one's got a pretty easily pinpoint-able origin. A tweet featuring two photos of Drake wearing contrasting outfits (embedded below) surfaced with the caption "Get you a man who can do both" on Valentines Day this year, and clearly, the brothers Sremm caught wind of it when they were working on Sremmlife 2. An altered version of the line appears on their new track "Black Beatles," namely: "Like clockwork, I blow it all/And get some more/Get you somebody that can do both." These boys clearly have their ears to the e-streets.
Get you a man who can do both pic.twitter.com/D5vVY3u7qT
New Phone, Who Dis?
This meme is perhaps the most relatable of them all. We've all lot a few numbers over the year, and when you receive a text from an unknown number acting like they know you, you've got no choice but to hit them with the "New phone, who dis?" Of course, the internet's run with it, letting it take on the meaning that once upgrading yourself, your old friends and flings are irrelevant (my personal favorite is below). On Rae Sremmurd's new track "Shake It Fast," Swae tells the ladies, "You know it's lit/Do the splits/New phone, who dis."