Megan Thee Stallion - "Megan"
Self-professed hot girl shit
Megan Javon Ruth Pete, of Houston, Texas, has become one of the biggest names in the industry over the last few years — under the stage name Megan Thee Stallion.1 The only way to have not heard her name at some point recently is if you live totally off-grid, in which case you aren’t reading this.
Stallion learned the craft from her mother, who was also a rapper (by the stage name of Holly-wood), but who also required that Stallion wait until she was 21 before she started her career due to the suggestive tendencies in Stallion’s lyricism. That delay in launching her career did absolutely nothing to hurt it, though; Stallion’s debut album, 2020’s Good News, hit #1 in the charts, was met with critical acclaim, and made several year-end lists.
This instantaneous success was likely helped by several high-profile features. Most notably, she featured on Cardi B’s hit song “WAP”, but Good News also included features from Beyonce, SZA, Big Sean, and 2 Chainz. Stallion was immediately on the map, and she’s stayed there, with both 2022’s Traumazine and now Megan hitting Top 5 on multiple charts.
Megan is a notable release for Stallion because it’s the first album she’s released since splitting with her former record label, 1501 Certified Entertainment.
Despite that her name comes up often, Megan is my first outing with Stallion — Hip-Hop is still a genre I’m feeling out and learning how to appreciate, but this one is overdue.
Megan starts with “Hiss”, which really shows off almost everything that the album features throughout — attitude, confidence, sexually explicit (but also incredibly clever) lyrics, and high-energy beats. The lyricism in most songs contains some brilliant lines, though there are some exceptions ("B.A.S.”, for example, which it too busy repeating itself to be clever).
Multiple songs contain nerdy lines, most obviously “Otaku Hot Girl”, because Stallion self-identifies as an Otaku.
Stallion also uses a vocal tag or ad-lib2 consisting of a tongue-out “Ah!” which appears in every song, usually multiple times. By the end of the album, I can pretty much predict when it’ll come up, and it gets to the point where it’s a mild irritation.
The whole album, as a casual listen, is fire. There are very few songs I’m not bopping to at some point. Stallion’s flow is as good as her lyricism, and the beats are all solid. Even as somebody who does not yet fully get Hip-Hop, it’s an enjoyable listen.
My biggest complaint is that the album lacks substance. It’s a frequent complaint about a large section of the genre for me. There are few emotional anchors; while the album is steeped in confidence and demonstrates positive ownership of one’s own sexuality, it also doesn’t really go any deeper than that. Stallion portrays herself as desirable, wealthy, and proud. But she also reinforces the idea that women have to be in competition for men, which is something that feminists have been trying to leave in the past for a good while now. But she brags about being able to ‘steal yo man’ while also getting aggressive about anybody thinking about trying to steal hers.
I think she’s more than smart enough to give us something more. Something deeper.
And the album’s last two songs are the proof: “Moody Girl” is an emotionally honest breakdown about how difficult it is to try and forge a genuine connection with somebody when you’re going through something. Stallion’s mother passed in 2019, right before her career took off, so the song explores Stallion’s inability to do anything more than use men for her physical needs because, in her words, they “Need this pussy, but nigga don't need me”. Then the album closes with “Cobra”, which deals more directly with depression. In those low moments, sex and physical desirability are her only sources of self-worth, and leaning into that helps her to not feel so alone.
These two tracks, by themselves, say so much. And that layered meaning can definitely be applied retroactively to several tracks earlier in the album, but not uniformly. I really wish this depth was present throughout — just a line or two here and there.
MTS is very talented, and I’m curious to see how she grows and evolves in her artistry, especially now that she really has self-control over her projects through the label that she created.
Rating: Green
“Stallion” is actually her genuine nickname, given to her due to her height and frame in her early teens.
Most rappers or hip-hop producers have something that they drop into songs to help listeners identify who they’re listening to. I’m not entirely sure what the technical term is, but this “Ah!” is one of Stallion’s things.
“Real hot girl shit” is another.