walking upstream…
Swae Lee
photo: icebox · cc by 3.0 ↗Swae Lee
Khalif Malik Ibn Shaman Brown was born in Inglewood, California, and raised in Tupelo, Mississippi, where he began making music in high school before forming the duo Rae Sremmurd with his older brother Slim Jxmmi and signing to Mike WiLL Made-It's EarDrummers label in 2013. Known for wide-ranged, reverb-heavy vocals and genre-blending melodic hooks, he describes himself as a singer more than a rapper, a self-assessment borne out by a run of crossover hits including Rae Sremmurd's 'Black Beatles,' his star turn on French Montana's 'Unforgettable,' and 'Sunflower' with Post Malone, the first song certified diamond-times-two by the RIAA. His breezy, sing-song approach helped define the melodic edge of late-2010s trap and made him a sought-after hook writer across pop and rap.
the sound in question
2017
UnforgettableSwae Lee
walk the tributaries ↓
Kid Cudi2000s–2010s · Hip hop / Alternative hip hop / Pop rap
Swae Lee's habit of half-singing, half-humming a melody rather than rapping a bar sits squarely in the lineage Kid Cudi opened up in the late 2000s, when Cudi turned wordless, moaned hooks and a lonely, sung cadence into a viable way to carry a rap record. Swae's airy, tuneful toplines lean on the same idea: melody first, diction loose, the voice used more as an instrument than a delivery system for rhymes.
listen: upstream & here
2009
Day 'N' NiteKid Cudi
2018
SunflowerSwae Lee
listen forThrow on Cudi's 'Day 'N' Nite' and sit with that hummed, drifting hook, then cue Swae Lee's verse on 'Sunflower' — hear how both float a simple, singsong melody over the beat and let the tune, not the words, do the emotional work.
Lil Wayne2000s · Hip hop / Southern hip-hop / Trap
For a young Southern rapper coming up in the 2010s, Lil Wayne's late-2000s pivot toward Auto-Tuned, melodically sung hooks and a loose, punch-drunk swagger was a blueprint, and Swae Lee's brash, tune-carrying delivery draws on that template. The lineage runs through Wayne's model of the rapper who croons his hooks and treats charisma and cadence as the main event.
listen: upstream & here
2008
LollipopLil Wayne
2014
No TypeSwae Lee
listen forPut Wayne's 'Lollipop' next to Rae Sremmurd's 'No Type' — notice how each rides a sticky, sung-more-than-rapped hook and a cocky, unbothered bounce, the vocal pitched up into melody rather than kept to a hard rap flow.
OutKast2000s · Southern hip hop / Funk / Psychedelic hip hop
As fellow Southern artists who bent rap toward sung melody and pop crossover, OutKast established the template of the genre-blending, singing Southern rapper that a duo like Rae Sremmurd — even the title 'Black Beatles' nods at rock-and-pop crossover — extends into the trap era. The through-line is Southern hip hop that reaches for a hook big and tuneful enough to top the pop charts without abandoning its regional roots.
listen: upstream & here
2003
Hey Ya!OutKast
2016
Black BeatlesSwae Lee
listen forCompare the genre-hopping, sung-through pop of OutKast's 'Hey Ya!' with 'Black Beatles' — both take a Southern rap act into full crossover mode, trading hard verses for an outsized, melodic hook built to cross over to a pop and rock audience.