Rae Sremmurd
Rae Sremmurd took to the Governor’s Ball Main Stage like a couple of kings showing up late to their coronation. “We came to make the rain stop,” Khalif “Swae Lee” Brown said before taking a selfie onstage, the crowd as his backdrop. If nothing else went down during Rae Sremmurd’s set, this moment would perfectly encapsulate the performance. With the impressive crowd of not-yet-twenty-something youths (made evident by Swae Lee’s question “Who here in college?” which was met by resounding applause) pushing up to the front of the stage chanting along to the chorus of “No Flex Zone,” it was the most “millenial” shit I’ve ever seen, like watching Urban Dictionary definitions reveal themselves before my eyes in real-time.
At no point was this more obvious than 15 minutes into the set when Aaquil “Slim Jimmi” Brown fell off the stage, and everyone acted like it was nbd. There were no obvious hysterics, and it wasn’t clear if he slipped or accidentally jumped, but whatever happened, Slim Jimmi ended up bent over sitting behind the DJ booth, surrounded by at least four EMTs. Swae Lee and their hype men grinned while making statements like, “This nigga’s leg is like, split open, man,” before reassuring everyone that Slim Jimmi is the “turn up king” and would no doubt return to perform. Passing Slim Jimmi the mic, the disembodied voice of the injured rapper enthusiastically said, “I got a big ass piece of glass in my leg,” before following up with, “if you got video, put that shit on Instagram!” Before the EMTs took him off the stage, he called out, “Hey yo! I’m not dead. Y’all turn the fuck up and some of y’all bad bitches hit us up.” Swae Lee performed the rest of the set alone, one of their hype men pulling up to the front of the stage to accompany him on certain verses. “This goes out to all the bad bitches around the world!” he shouted out before launching into “No Type.” So much of the novelty of Rae Sremmurd is the fact that they’re brothers, and it’s heartening to see two family members tweaking the fuck out on stage together. But Swae Lee didn’t look lonely up there following Slim Jimmi’s departure. He didn’t even seem phased, and no one in the audience left; in fact, the crowd became more congested. –Gabriela