Rae Sremmurd pulled out a 2016 classic to support Mike WiLL Made-It during his VERZUZ against Hit-Boy.
During the event on Friday (January 30) at Apple Music Studios in Los Angeles, the rap duo pulled up to support their mentor Mike WiLL and performed “Black Beatles,” arguably their biggest hit. The Gucci Mane-featured song is RIAA-certified Diamond, held down the number-one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven non-consecutive weeks, and was the soundtrack of the viral “Mannequin Challenge” — a trend that got so big it even pulled in an actual Beatle.
Also pulling up to support the VERZUZ headliners was Big Sean, who performed his verse on the the Hit-Boy-produced “Clique,” while Juicy J took it back to 2012 with the Mike WiLL-produced “Bandz a Make Her Dance.” T.I. and Tiny Harris and Chloe Bailey were also in the building while the producers went back and forth during this year’s Grammy Weekend.
Ahead of VERZUZ, Mike WiLL spoke to Complex’s Jordan Rose and around the sixteen-minute mark, he recalled tapping Gucci to appear on “Black Beatles” after the rapper’s prison release. The producer also revealed that Rae Sremmurd member Swae Lee wrote five verses for the song, around which Mike WiLL restructured the track to make it the classic it is today.
“We go through like twenty different versions of the mix and then, next thing you know, this song comes out,” he said around the eighteen-minute mark below. “It's going up and it's going crazy. It's probably like number thirty or number twenty in the Hot 100 and then now all of a sudden the Mannequin Challenge happens and then the whole world freezes.”
