Just How Badly Did Ellen DeGeneres Butcher Rae Sremmurd's Name?

Ellen DeGeneres apparently was not aware how to correctly say Rae Sremmurd's name.

January 17, 2017

I don't care what anyone says; if you're trying to be a real life pop star, you haven't made it until you've hit that Ellen stage. Call bullsh*t if you want, but Ellen's clocking in at almost four million viewers...daily. That's a big deal, and while she has her finger on the pulse (read: she has a squad of internet-savvy people on her team) and can spot a meme, that doesn't mean she'll actually know how to pronounce your name. This is something Rae Sremmurd learned during their recent performance on Ellen.

While they tore the house down (or tore the Ellen stage down as well as you can rip it up) with a rendition of "Black Beatles" (probably because of the virality of the #MannequinChallenge), it's Ellen's introduction that you need to pay attention for. It's actually pretty standard, until it's time to say "Rae Sremmurd."

Now, it sounds like she pretty much nailed pronouncing "drummers" backwards, what you're actually hearing is an overdub, which means that during the taping, she said something that sounding nothing like "Sremmurd." Do we even have a way to hear what she said first? Also, does it feel like she felt she might say it wrong in the first place, hence her stumbling when saying "please welcome." Or am I just bugging? (I might be bugging.)

Either way, this isn't necessarily a major fail on Ellen's fault. We imagine many of you, back when "No Flex Zone" was starting to pop off, couldn't pronounce their name (which is just "Ear Drummers" spelled backwards). Twitter didn't know, either.

Hell, there was even a poll on how you pronounce "Sremmurd," with "Sreh-murd" winning out.

It got so deep that Rae Sremmurd took the initiative and broke down how to pronounce their name.

Now, we can see how this happens. Ellen probably heard "the guys who did that song that's in the #MannequinChallenge are coming on" and she was like "viral clicks? Lehgo." We just wish they'd spent a bit more time practicing the name, so we wouldn't have to even hear such an obvious overdub on her show. Just learn the name!

Who cares, though? Rae killed it, and have another notch on their belt. True Black Beatle status.