Megan Thee Stallion’s rise to rap stardom can be measured in summers. 2019 marked the first Hot Girl Summer, taking after her nickname, and she christened it with her beloved first mainstream mixtape, Fever. The next year, in July, her world was remade for the worst when she was shot by former friend (and intimate partner), rapper Tory Lanez, though a feature on Cardi B’s culture-shifting “WAP” followed less than a month later. In summer 2021, she rocked her first major festival circuit while manning the unthinkable dissonance of a legal battle against the unscrupulous man who harmed her and a nasty fight in the court of public opinion. As she made her Coachella debut in 2022, she appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone’s June issue, and soon after released her sophomore album, Traumazine. It was shadowy and uneven, colored by the betrayal, sexist scrutiny, and depression that plagued her. At the end of 2022, Lanez was found guilty in the shooting, and last summer, for the first time since breaking out, her hotter months were quiet.
That’s why it’s so important that this summer of Thee Stallion is so joyous, so seamless, so triumphant. She’s sold more than 280,000 tickets as she headlines her first tour — the Hot Girl Summer Tour, of course. Midrun, she announced a new body of work to add to the set list — her third album, Megan. Largely free of Traumazine’s rage, sadness, and paranoia, Megan is a reclamation of the fire, fight, whimsy, and craftsmanship that defined her before violence threatened to. “I walked around and talked out loud, processing what I felt, and I started telling myself the truth about how I felt,” she told L’Officiel about making this album — and for the first time in a long time, she says she started to feel really happy. It’s a refreshing reintroduction to the Texas party starter and lethal writer, and exuberant fodder for the arenas she’s packing. While some old bad habits die hard — Megan is painfully overstuffed, like Traumazine and Good News before it — it is in fact her strongest work to date.
After years of Megan zealots clamoring for more of Tina Snow — Megan’s Pimp C-inspired alter ego for whom an early, shit-talking, fan-favorite EP is named — her latest album plays like that persona has claimed eminent domain over the proceedings. She thrives on the relentlessly Southern production, from the regal horns modeled after Jeezy’s “I Luv It” on “Broke His Heart,” to the way “Where Them Girls At” innovatively samples Kstylis’ 2010s down-South house-party anthems “Booty Hopscotch” and “Booty Me Down,” to her first ever song with her Texas rap heroes UGK. “Paper Together” is slow, loud, and bangin’, replete with a posthumous, unreleased verse from Pimp C himself. Megan taps fellow Southerners as beatsmiths — her regular collaborators Lil Ju and Juicy J, but also young mavens Tay Keith, Honorable C.N.O.T.E., and Buddha Bless. As rap partners, she calls on blog-era icon Big K.R.I.T. and new friend GloRilla, too. Glo and Megan’s rib-tickling bars about their country antics are unabated on “Accent,” where Meg declares, “I’m thicker than your bifocals, all my denim be double-knitted/Boy, I’m thicker than your bloodline, thicker than a Popeye’s biscuit.”
It’s a thrill to hear Megan having the time of her life on these songs. She’s wittier, funnier, and snarkier than ever. Sometimes, she lets her jokes and entendres simmer, like when she spits “I’m not the one to be textin’ back slow/Don’t let me get in that mode/You got ’bout 10 minutes tops/Then I’m finna go be a ho’” on “B.A.S.” Other times, she’s devastating with quick quips, like “Pussy fire, made that man forget about his kids,” on “Broke His Heart”; “That ain’t my bae, he really more like my bidet,” on “B.A.S.” (a truly an unhinged thing to say); and perhaps most important, “Bitch they not pro-you, they anti-me,” on “Otaku Hot Girl.” Indeed, Megan gives the people that have given her hell exactly what they deserve. Earlier this year, she earned her first solo Number One with the album intro “Hiss,” which included direct shots at Nicki Minaj and Drake, and sparked a short-lived (and largely one-sided, as Megan said little beyond her lyrics) battle between her and the former. Megan comes with what are likely more pointed disses at Drake, Minaj, Lanez, former best friend and accused Lanez ally Kelsey Nicole, and more. Her barbs are poignantly specific and dismissive, as if she’s finally run out of fucks to give.
Megan tackles both new and old subject matter with vim here — she’s always had fighting words, but there’s a level of unbotheredness on the album that feels novel. She’s also always prided herself on her sexuality, but she’s especially defiant and self-accepting here. “Y’all hoes love talkin’ like saints/Tryna impress these niggas, I ain’t,” she says, waving her freak flag on “Where Them Girls At.” She also owns an aforementioned element of her sexuality — bisexuality — more plainly here than she has before. “I like girls and I like niggas, both of ’em gettin’ ate,” she declares militantly on “Broke His Heart.” Another important side of her — her “weeb”-dom — is shown in full force on Megan, with two songs steeped in Japanese culture, “Otaku Hot Girl” (which literally means anime-obsessive Hot Girl) and “Mamushi,” featuring Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba and producer Koshy. Though “Mamushi,” with its simple beat, repetitive hook, and choppy cadence, isn’t as exciting as its counterpart, it may be an important signal to her international fans and sign of her passions (plus, it has a pretty cute TikTok dance routine taking off). “Just landed in Kyoto, I’m worldwide, these bitches local,” she brags on “Otaku.”
Megan has the makings of what could be the seminal album that the rapper’s discography desperately needs, but is hindered by its length. This is by no means a problem unique to Megan — in the streaming era, albums are bloated in a race to drive up numbers, completely contradicting the shrunken attention spans that come with the social media age. More often than not, it is daunting and unpleasant to listen to 18 songs in a row from one album. This is a particularly unhelpful condition for Megan, whose rap style does have variance, but not enough to fill out such a sprawling track list. The album would have benefited from Thee Stallion and company making hard curatorial choices. While there’s only one glaringly obvious candidate for cutting — “Worthy,” a corny empowerment pop rap that speaks to Megan’s diverse tastes but not her ability to execute — it’s easy to imagine the album as stronger without the slightly disorienting dip into drill on “B.A.S.” and the elementary palate of “Mamushi.”
Still, all the tracks encompass Megan Thee Stallion’s glorious revival, with her newbie days and fresh trauma in her rearview. “Cobra,” a somewhat underwhelming single upon its release, works much better as it bookends the album with a reminder of what it took to get here. Free from Good News’ and Traumazine’s burden of rewriting the narrative around her, Megan could benefit from time and space to rest, play, live, and further define who she is for herself out of the public eye — so she can make stronger choices on wax. Regardless, Megan is a vibrant coronation for her hottest summer yet.
From Rolling Stone US
