For a short while, before they dominated the charts, made the world freeze, and became go-to collaborators for pop royalty (Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Childish Gambino, etc.), it required specifying: Rae Sremmurd is two people. The Tupelo, Mississippi–raised brothers, Aaquil and Khalif Brown—better known by their stage names, Slim Jxmmi and Swae Lee—were such a cohesive unit, and their group name sounded enough like a single person’s, that confusion was common.

Not anymore.

Fast-forward a few years, and the duo is practically pop royalty themselves—they certainly live like kings—and, finally, most people seem to have learned the group’s etymology (“ear” backwards, “drummers” backwards).

But never have Rae Sremmurd’s two voices been more distinctive than now. On May 4, they released SR3MM, a triple album containing two solo ventures (Jxmtro and Swaecation) and one co-product, each nine songs. It was a chance for Jxmmi and Swae to flex their respective strengths (trap bangers from the former, smooth vibes from the latter) while also coming together for something greater than the sum of their parts. As for what this portends for the duo’s future?

“I think we'll make music together for the rest of our lives,” Swae assures me.

GQ: Swae, your solo effort on SR3MM has a travel through-line. How did you conceive of Swaecation?

Swae Lee: Swaecation was like a whole different side of Swae that people have never seen. They're used to me making party records. It's my more melodic side. Swaecation is really just my storyline, which is like movie-score music, kind of a love story. But it's not really even about love, it's about the more suave side of the lifestyle.

On "Bedtime Stories," Jxmmi, you sing, "Falling in love is my worst nightmare." I was wondering why it's your worst nightmare.

Slim Jxmmi: Everybody has bad experiences with that. Some people be looking for love, some people be really searching for love, like that's their mission out the whole year. So every girl they meet, they falling in love. But to me, that's like the wrong way to go about it. I feel like if you fall in love, you gonna fall. So that's my worst nightmare, because you don't know what's gonna happen. You let someone in, that's hard to do.

Swae, you collaborated with Kendrick Lamar on the Black Panther soundtrack. What was that like? And what did you learn?

SL: He played that song [“The Ways”] for me, and I instantly caught the vibe. I just went in the studio and started singing, and the note I was hitting was a new note. [sings] "Power girl, power girl." I was trying to come on that song like an angel.

Kendrick taught me how to fuck shit up. Don't let nothing stop you. The man just got a Pulitzer Prize.