As a lover of hip hop, I (and many others) notice it’s a very male dominated genre, at least in the mainstream. It’s an unfortunate part of the genre, as it puts an unnecessarily masculine air around a culture that is at least partially supposed to uplift women. Instead of uplifting, however, this atmosphere creates stigma around most of the women who do end up finding success. Many believe all women rappers “sound the same” or “only rap about one thing”, and I just find this unfair. Women are not the only ones who rap about sex, drugs, and money. What a person raps about doesn’t always matter if they can rap about it with conviction.
I would argue Megan Thee Stallion is a rapper in the mainstream who raps with quite a bit of conviction. She is charismatic, confident, and has a fierce baritone voice that truly helps her stand out. All of that being said, she has yet to make an album I’ve truly loved. Her previous album, Traumazine, had a handful of tracks that I was a fan of, but didn’t come together for me fully. I liked it but was far from truly loving it. What I have wanted from Megan for a while now is a deeply personal album that truly encapsulates her emotions surrounding the fascinating life she’s led so far. Traumazine had hints of that but was, for the most part, just confident ‘bad bitch’ anthems. Not a bad thing but it did wear a bit thin. Thankfully, on her latest album (at the time of writing), simply titled Megan, she improves on this quite a bit. Yes, the album is still a tad repetitive lyrically, but not only does it make up for this with some of the best production she’s ever rapped over, but also the aforementioned conviction she’s known for is in full force here. On Megan, we get to see what Thee Stallion is truly about.
The song Hiss starts the album off with a bang and was actually one of the singles for the album. It was the song that caused me to anticipate this album leading up to its release as much I did. Hiss is a song where Megan fires on all cylinders at her haters, starting off by yelling “fuck y’all” (a very fitting move). Once the spoken word intro is done, a sinister piano beat kicks in, truly kicking off the track. I cannot stress enough how wonderful the progression on the piano is. It makes the entire beat, and makes it the soundtrack to the lyrical onslaught Megan provides. In the first verse she spits the classic line “these hoes they ain’t mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law”. For the uninitiated, Megan’s Law is a law that targets convicted sex offenders. One of Megan’s biggest adversaries in hip hop, Nicki Minaj, is married to one (these are not allegations, this is a fact in the eyes of the law). It is a biting line that shows just how clever Megan is. That cleverness shows on the rest of the track with lines such as “don’t speak on my body count if the dick ain’t worth coming back for seconds” and “these – who be hating bbls be walking around with the same squad”. There are also spoken word choruses where Megan just lets the anger out. I love the expressiveness across the board and how Megan throws the hell she’s been through right back at her haters. Hiss is a passionate, venomous bombshell of a song that sets the bar extremely high for the rest of the album.
The following track, Rattle, shares some similarities to Hiss but has a different feel overall. Both have multiple spoken word sections, lyrically take shots at haters, and are named after something snake related. That being said, this track is closer to a conventional trap banger than the more minimalist Hiss, given the busier beat and focus on danceability. The hook is extremely catchy; I can see myself singing “can’t be too many” over and over again in the shower. It’s a trap hook that truly works. Not dissimilar to the one on Where Them Girls At, which is a bit repetitive but I just didn’t care given all the fun I had with it. Plus the drums throughout wouldn’t be too far fetched on a bubblegum bass song, which I really enjoyed. I love how heavy and deep they are. It also switches flow between verses which makes it all the more dynamic. Lyrically it’s nothing to write home about overall but it doesn’t need to be. It gets the job done just by being the banger it is.
There are a couple of other notable early album highlights worth mentioning, such as the fun little nerdy track Otaku Hot Girl. For those unaware, an otaku is a person obsessed with consuming anime and other related media. Megan herself is somewhat of an otaku, having even hosted the 2024 Crunchyroll Anime Awards. She has also, on multiple occasions, cosplayed some of her favorite characters, so it is no surprise she would make a song with anime references, some Japanese words, and even Jujutsu Kaisen voice actor Adam McArthur doing an intro in his Yuji voice. I won’t spoil what’s said, but it’s so funny to me. My otaku days are admittedly far behind me but I did appreciate the couple of references I did get such as “sexy jutsu I feel like Naruto”. I am sure many of the more current anime fans will appreciate this one for what it is.
Boa was the final single for the album, which is a confusing choice apart from it continuing the snake theme of the two before it. It’s lyrically hit or miss, with some very conventional Megan lines like “I be showing my ass, they mad” and “yellow diamonds in my necklace”. These are mixed in with cool parts like Megan syncing her “womp womp womp womp” with the beat. All of that being said, the production is actually really interesting. There is a catchy and melodic vocal sample and some vocal ‘tick tock’ sound effects with a clock sound accompanying it, along with some more conventional trap drums that keep the rhythm strong. That being said, the issues with the writing are not exclusive to Boa and pervade much of the second half of the album.
There are many questionable decisions on the song Mamushi, and the writing is definitely one of them. The song has a minimalist piano beat that sounds more awkward than the one on Hiss, but on top of that the hook is just Megan proclaiming “I get money I’m a star” then repeating the word ‘star’ over and over again. Like the production it accompanies, it’s awkward to listen to. Megan also raps in Japanese on the song, which is cool… except for the fact that she’s not saying much (essentially just repeating the hook in Japanese). Plus the flow half the time is a flow she has done numerous times before, or this weird, stilted, kid song flow. Rapper Yuki Chiba is featured, which was interesting because I hadn’t heard of him prior to this album. I can tell he’s talented, but the flow he used here was pretty similar to the kid song flow that Megan did earlier. It is unfortunate he had to be wasted on this track.
The song Paper Together is also pretty disappointing and wastes a promising feature. Unlike Mamushi, the song isn’t outright bad, but the featured rappers from legendary southern hip hop outfit UGK are basically a non presence, especially Pimp C. No fault of his given that he’s been dead for over a decade and this verse was essentially snagged from his archives for the album. He has one or two good punchlines, but the rest of the verse is just a bunch of filler. I wish Megan had just featured Bun B and called it a day but I also get that the name recognition for UGK is pretty widespread. Even then, the Bun B feature is nothing to write home about. He talks about lavish concepts such as big cars and money. It makes sense but it’s not really entertaining to me. Megan also doesn’t add much here with drab lines like “You ain’t a bad bitch if he cheatin’ and you stayin’ with him”.
Another track with a less than stellar Megan verse and a wasted guest spot is Miami Blue which features southern hip hop darling Big K.R.I.T.. I will say despite Megan’s shtick continuing to wear a little thin, the beat on this song is pretty enjoyable. I suppose I just find Megan appealing over piano beats. This one in particular sounds delightfully nocturnal. It sounds like a song you would play on the way out from an energetic night at the club. Unfortunately some of Megan’s lines take me out of the vibe. “I ain’t worried about nothin’ that a broke hoe said” is basically a filler line, like many of the lines throughout the second half of the album. Big K.R.I.T.’s verse is admittedly better but is also significantly shorter.
Despite the second half of the album being generally weaker, the last couple of tracks are surprisingly enjoyable. Moody Girl has Megan doing what I have wanted since Traumazine: talking about her emotions. This is a bit different than I expected though. She talks about the feelings caused by the death of her mother. “In a room full of people, I still feel lonely” is a hard hitting line. While she does get overtly sexual here like she does on a good amount of the album, she provides context for those feelings here. She explains how her high sex drive isn’t something she’s completely crazy about and is partly to fill a void. Her hefty discussion of sex on the album isn’t much of an issue for me partly because she attempts to mix it up, but also because of this track. She provides context to her behavior. The listener gets a look into Megan’s psyche on this one. One of my favorite sets of lines is “Uh, matter fact, don’t touch me
Looked in the mirror and I’m feeling kind of ugly” because it shows the very vulnerability I believe a lot of Megan’s music has been lacking. I hope for more songs like Moody Girl on the next album. I also love the soulful hummed vocals on the beat. This is in contrast to the heavy guitars on the closer, Cobra. Funny enough Cobra was actually the first single for the album. While I find this to be an odd decision, the song did get me excited for the album. The chugging guitars, the light synth melody, and rattling trap drums all make for an intense beat to end on. Lyrically the song almost feels like a tone setter if one were to listen to the album on a loop given how confident and biting it is. It isn’t as venomous as hiss but it is still confident and shows who Megan is. It even ends with the line “he say I’m crazy, don’t I know it?”. Aren’t we all, Megan?
Megan is a fitting title for this album. I understand the trend of an artist naming an album after their first name is a bit overdone. I would argue that it doesn’t matter if the shoe fits, and the shoe most definitely fits here. Megan Thee Stallion is a confident, sexual, and layered individual. The album very much reflects this, to a slight fault. While Moody Girl does provide the context for me to forgive the repetitive nature of the lyrics, the repetition is still there at points. There is only so many times you can make the same four or five things sound engaging or fun. I believe Megan mostly succeeded but as the human she is, she has her limits. That being said I enjoyed this project overall and believe Megan truly gave us an idea of who she is and what she’s about. I hope in the future we get a project that is a bit more concise, perhaps something conceptual. I think Megan shouldn’t be discounted in the rap game, because she’s so much more than just a ‘woman rapper’. She’s a force to be reckoned with, one that I see a bright future for.
8/10
