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Though Sremmurd don’t claim to be Beatlemaniacs, they had an encouraging meeting with McCartney at Coachella in 2014. “When you’ve reached a Beatle, it’s the ultimate co-sign,” says Lee. “Black Beatles” would become the challenge’s unofficial soundtrack – even Paul McCartney released a video of himself standing motionless as the song played. The song took off this past fall after Florida high school students invented a viral phenomenon, the Mannequin Challenge, when they posed, frozen, for a YouTube video.
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It was youthful, but had a musical maturity.” While producing “Black Beatles,” Will recruited friend Gucci Mane, who recorded a verse after he was released from prison following a stint on a gun charge. “It’s rare that you get double acts anymore,” says Lowe. A month after its release as a Sremmlife 2 single Black Beatles gained popularity when it became affiliated with the Mannequin Challenge, a viral video sensation that captures people. Will told Rolling Stone at the time, “I look at them like a hood ‘NSync.” The people in the video stand still like mannequins while the camera jumps from one person to the next. Will produced 2015’s SremmLife, whose title doubled as a philosophy: “the good life, the family, safe sex and paychecks,” Lee has said. The Mannequin Challenge is a viral video craze where people act out scenes without actually moving at all. He signed them to his label, EarDrummers, which the brothers renamed themselves after (read their name backward). The team behind marketing Rae Sremmurd’s Black Beatles (Interscope and PizzaSlime) recognized that the Mannequin Challenge was trending but had no song associated with it. After planking, the Harlem Shake and Harambe, is anyone really surprised by anything the internet decides to turn into a meme A true student of internet culture must simply accept the inanity.
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Later they moved to Atlanta and caught the attention of Mike Will Made It, who’d recently produced much of Miley Cyrus’ Bangerz. So how did Black Beatles become the official Mannequin Challenge anthem A forward thinking and perfectly timed marketing campaign. In 2011, they became Dem Outta St8 Boyz, making it as far as a talent competition on BET. Since forming in 2013, Sremmurd – brothers Khalif “Swae Lee” and Aaquil “Slim Jxmmi” Brown – have been aiming to make music that’s, as Lee has said, “acceptable, but weird as fuck.” The Brown brothers grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi, before moving out as teenagers and into a duplex, hosting huge parties where they showed off their music.