In a few weeks, the world will finally get to see Baz Luhrmann’s hyperactive Elvis Presley biopic, which is thought-provokingly titled Elvis. The movie will come with a soundtrack where various big stars — Eminem, Tame Impala, Jack White — will revisit Elvis Presley’s music, reshaping it into different things. We’ve already heard Doja Cat interpolating “Hound Dog” on the soundtrack single “Vegas,” and now we get to hear a couple of big names from the world of mid-’00s party music getting together with a couple of Elvis cast members to give their take on “That’s All Right.”
The new song “Tupelo” is billed as a collaboration between superstar DJ Diplo and Swae Lee, one half of Rae Sremmurd. It also features Austin Butler, the guy who plays Elvis in Elvis, and Gary Clark, Jr., the Texan blues-rocker who’s in the movie as Arthur Crudup, the Delta bluesman who first wrote “That’s All Right” in 1946. The song attempts to turn “That’s All Right,” which Elvis released as his debut single in 1954, into a sort of club-rap hoedown. Given the song’s title, it’s probably worth noting that Tupelo, Mississippi is the hometown of both Elvis Presley and Swae Lee. Listen to the track and to Elvis’ version of “That’s All Right” below.
In other Rae Sremmurd news, the duo just started teasing SremmLife 4, the follow-up to their way-overextended 2018 triple album SR3MM. Also, I’ve got a chapter about Rae Sremmurd’s 2016 chart-topper “Black Beatles” in my forthcoming book The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History Of Pop Music.
Elvis and its soundtrack are both out 6/24. The Number Ones is out 11/15 via Hachette, and you better believe that I’m going to plug that motherfucker every time I get a chance. You can pre-order the book here.
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