Album of the Week: Rae Sremmurd SremmLife

Hip-hop is the best genre around for strange, unusual and all around weird voices. It's also the most interesting genre in music today because of those very voices.

If Young Thug was 2014's breakout voice, then Rae Sremmurd created the year's breakout track and while both artists have different lyrical sensibilities and styles, they are both decidedly, gloriously weird.

Unfortunately, that weirdness doesn't translate as well on Rae Sremmurd's debut album, SremmLife. But don't despair – the album provides a lot of hope that the young duo still has a lot to offer.

Rae Sremmurd – Slim Jimmy and Swae Lee, both in their early 20s – are brothers from Tupelo, Mississippi, who broke huge in 2014 thanks to "No Flex Zone" which became the freestyle/remix hit of the summer with A-listers like Nicki Minaj and Pusha T jumping on their own versions. They also released a second (and better) single "No Type" which was bit of a slow burner, but grew steadily in the early winter.

The brothers thrive on repetitive choruses (like Migos' inescapable "Versace" from 2013), which breed into earworms thanks to their yelped delivery – they don't so much rap or sing their words as they slurp them, pitches and tones rising and falling within a single word.

Their sonic vocabulary on SremmLife is largely driven by Mike WiLL (aka Mike WiLL Made-It) – the producer who has done so much for artists like Future (another fantastic weirdo). Rae Sremmurd are the first artists on his Ear Drummer Records label and while it brings a certain amount of prestige to work with a certified hit-maker like WiLL, it takes nearly half the album for Sremmurd to make something interesting out of it.

The first four tracks of the album are a little too forced in trying to make these young men sound "hard" – the producers go for the booming bells and 808 beats that characterized so much of Rick Ross' early work. It's not bad, per se, but it's typical – which is not a good look for these two. "Unlock the Swag" is an early contender for the most annoying song of the year and "No Flex Zone" is there in case you somehow forgot it existed but otherwise, there's not a lot to recommend about the first half of the album.

Things immediately pick up on "This Could Be Us," with its bouncy piano-driven beat that embraces the youth and playful aspect of Rae Sremmurd and that's where the key to its success rests – a theme for the rest of the album.

"Come Get Her" is the typical hip-hop stripper misogyny that has become so passé but remains so popular – don't ask me why. "Up Like Trump" is unremarkable except for the fun Jimmy and Lee are having at Donald Trump's expense (the best part of it is the music video which features the duo kicking around New York with someone wearing a Trump mask).

It's easy for debut hip-hop albums to drown in guest appearances to raise the name recognition for relative unknowns, so it's refreshing to see Rae Srremmurd not fall into this trap. However, it's telling that the best songs on the album feature guest artists.

"Throw Some Mo" is easily the best track here, mostly because two of the best rappers around right now (not to mention the weirdest) roll through to show the rookies how it's done. Young Thug and Minaj's weirdness is so organic and part of their delivery and style that they bring Jimmy and Lee's game up just by being there.

The best banger on the album is "Yno" where perpetual sideman Big Sean acts the straight-man to Rae Sremmurd's yelps and yowls. I'm so used to hearing Big Sean as the rookie on tracks by bigger artists that it's a shock at first to hear him playing the elder. Perhaps the bigger shock is that he makes it work.

The real key to the album comes on closer "Safe Sex Pay Checks" the most pop-rap friendly song here, and also the catchiest tune. In an interview with Rolling Stone WiLL described Rae Sremmurd as a "hood 'N Sync" – pop music in its most ratchet form. I wasn't really sure what he meant until this song, but it's a pretty apt description – a radio-friendly anthem about safe sex (what parent wouldn't love that on the radio?) that cribs the chorus from Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." The best part of it is Jimmy and Lee actually sound their age – just entering their 20s, full of energy and excitement.

SremmLife isn't going to convince anyone that Rae Sremmurd are the best new voices in hip-hop and outside of fans already familiar with them, I don't think it will make much of a splash for rap fans. It's a debut album in almost every sense, but one with buckets of charisma and promise, and that will do for now.

Sremmlife is out from Interscope.

Author's note: This is the first of what will (hopefully) be my weekly column on the best music of the week. There aren't any hard-and-fast rules (yet) on what the criteria for music will be but the idea is to focus on an album/mixtape that comes out the week I'm writing in. This will of course depend on how early I get the music and may have to change a bit if a mixtape comes out I'm particularly happy about. In any case, I'm excited to get this started and am eager to hear from you on what music you love, hate and love to hate.