Brevity and Bravado: Rae Sremmurd - “Come Get Her”

In 2015, Complex magazine posted its year-end wrap list of the top 50 albums of 2015. This list is by no means perfect, Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION at 41, Sufjan’s Carrie and Lowell at 32, among other odd placings. At number one was no major surprise, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, already confirmed as an all-time great release, groundbreaking, eclectic, and masterful. At number three, however, there was some heated discourse, Rae Sremmurd’s breakout release SremmLife, packed full of absolute slappers: “No Type”, “Throw Sum Mo”, “This Could Be Us”, “Up Like Trump”, “No Flex Zone”, and most of all, the incomparable “Come Get Her”. Hot 97 morning show Co-Host and noted old-head Ebro Darden was having none of it, equating Rae Sremmurd to the Kris Kross of Mike Will Made-It’s Jermaine Dupri. Ebro called the placing “an embarrassment”, going on to say that because Rae Sremmurd cannot make any statements with their music, that it reflects poorly on Hip-Hop as a whole. Extrapolating on this, and considering Complex’s nature as a Hip-Hop focused publication, Ebro claimed that Country music as a genre would do their absolute best to celebrate artists who “are meaningful to their culture”.

Honestly though, what more does Country music celebrate than strong songwriting? Swae Lee, the dominant hook writer for Rae Sremmurd, should absolutely be celebrated for his work. Of course with the benefit of time, we know that his work on the all-time hit “Sunflower” and Beyoncé’s “Formation” (Swae came up with the concept and hook for the song at Coachella 2015) would easily make an argument for his writing and voice as being worth immense praise. At the time, to Ebro’s advantage, these very public accomplishments did not yet exist. Even so, the writing was on the wall, and definitely on the song “Come Get Her”. I know what you’re thinking, ok, it’s a hit, but the writing isn’t necessarily complex. Sure, there’s not much being said, but isn’t that the beauty of it? Like “For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn”, you can’t tell me that “Somebody come get her, she dancing like a stripper” doesn’t immediately conjure up an image and story. The sheer brevity of Swae’s writing on this song: in 9 words, you know everything you need to know: the situation, the people, the location, setting up for the perfect club banger. This, clearly, was still not enough for Ebro, who in a last ditch effort to reinforce his claims, went with the classic ‘balls to the wall’ rap criticism: that they didn’t write their own raps. Rae Sremmurd, sparing no time at all, went on the radio in the UK the very next day and freestyled for 20 straight minutes, no breaks. Badass.