Some people think that tainting the purity of Rae Sremmurd's "No Flex Zone" by remixing it is tantamount to a war crime, but ravers are not those people, so the crowd at Lizard Lounge in Deep Ellum, sweaty and bouncing, swallows every downbeat. It's late on a Friday night in early February, and the high-pitched, delightfully shrill voices of Swae Lee and Slimmy Jimmy, the Mississippi duo known as Rae Sremmurd, reverberate through the club. Then, as with most electronic dance music remixes, the song mutates until it's unrecognizable, shifting into a smorgasbord of computer digitations and heavy bass. The bodies on the dance floor grow sweatier with each promenade, the true mark of approval.
It's a quarter to midnight, and many of these people haven't raved with one another, at least on this scale, in about two months. Their old stomping grounds, a strip club called Jaguars Dallas, kicked them out after an overdose and a raid. But now the party's back up. Two go-go dancers — one on each side of the stage, both in neon, fuzzy boots and fishnet stockings — pop confetti into the mass of glistening flesh. The crowd erupts. DJ Shaolin orchestrates a call-and-response chant: Hey, we want some pussy.