FEATURE:
Revisiting…
Megan Thee Stallion – Good News
__________
SHE put out one of the best albums…
of this year in the form of Traumizine. Released last month, it is the second album from the phenomenal Megan Thee Stallion. The Texan rapper is a modern icon and someone who has released two faultless albums. Her first, Good News, came out in 2020. Released in November of that year, it was a stunning album that made the pandemic that much easier to deal with. In spite of the fact Good News came out at a time when most of us were confined, it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 after moving over 100,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. It spawned some of 2020’s best singles in the form of Body and Girls in the Hood. I am going to end with a couple of positive reviews for Good News. It gained huge acclaim and was noted as one of the best and biggest albums of 2020. I want to start with a terrific interview from GQ from November 2020. It is worth reading in-full, as it goes into her personal life and some controversies. Such a compelling and strong figure, Megan Thee Stallion delivered one of the most memorable and important debuts in years. I am including it in this feature, as I am not sure how many people listen to it in full, and whether it is played on radio much considering her new album is getting more focus:
“It may seem jarring to lay all this out at the beginning of the story, to start with a sudden cold plunge into a life-fracturing subject. In a year marked by undeniable success of Megan's own making—the viral moments and omnipresent bops and joyous social media antics—this lone and shitty incident (that she didn't create) has loomed persistently. Instead of sinking into the muck of a bad situation, Megan has chosen a way forward—not only by continuing to live her Hot Girl life, but also by transforming the ugliness of it all into an urgent message about how Black women in this country should be treated.
PHOTO CREDIT: Adrienne Raquel
Since 2019, with the release of her mixtape Fever, when she established herself as Hot Girl Meg—an aspirationally fun, powerfully sexy artist who rapped about the importance of being fun, powerful, and sexy—Megan has made it her mission to inspire a legion of fans, called the hotties, to be as flagrantly confident as she is. Her music is juicy self-help wrapped in wit and buoyed by preternaturally dazzling rap skills. And all of it is paired with a personality that somehow feels simultaneously genuine and like a built-for-Instagram exercise in branding. She's a cultural powerhouse perfectly pitched for the moment. Even a pandemic couldn't stop her; if anything it was an accelerant. In March she released the song “Savage,” which got an immediate boost when 19-year-old Keara Wilson created the “Savage” dance challenge, which was taken up by a captive audience, stuck inside during the early days of the lockdowns. “Savage” became a monster hit on TikTok, basically ensuring that by the time Megan dropped the remix with Beyoncé, it was destined to be the biggest track of 2020.
This, of course, was before Megan and Cardi B. released “WAP,” a pussy-exalting anthem that now has a historic place in the annals of timeless fuck tracks. “WAP” hit No. 1 on the charts without breaking a sweat, but it also set off a surprisingly loud freak-out amongst pearl-clutching, spirit-of-Tipper-Gore-runs-through-me conservatives. The acronym made the nightly news program my 66-year-old father watches, which led me to receive and ignore an earnest text asking what WAP stood for.
Megan laughs recalling those reactions. “I saw somebody…some Republican lady, you know how they be. Some goddamn Republican lady, like, ‘This is a terrible example,’ ” she says, slipping into Republican-lady voice. (Megan is referring to former congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine, who tweeted: “America needs far more women like Melania Trump and far less like Cardi B”.) “And I was like, ‘Girl, you literally had to go to YouTube or to your Apple Music to go listen to this song in its entirety. How are you in your Republican world even finding your way over here to talk about this? You must not have noooo WAP if you're mad at this song.’ ”
It doesn't bother or surprise her much, though. “Sometimes people are really not comfortable enough with themselves, and I don't think they like to watch other people be comfortable with themselves. And I don't think they want anybody to teach other people how to be comfortable with themselves,” she says both thoughtfully and dismissively.
The “WAP” discourse demonstrates the way that nearly everything Megan does prompts discussion and debate. She can proudly describe the appeal of a well-lubricated vagina, and then—bam!—she's caught up in a dialogue about the fear of Black women's sexuality. She can go about her business, wearing a dress, or shorts, or something that shows off her enviably muscular thighs, and it's a flash point in a conversation about what's “appropriate” for someone with a body like hers (frankly, anything). She can quietly try to heal from being shot, then find herself tugged into a national reckoning with racial injustice and the mistreatment of Black women. She's spent the past six months riding out a storm of things both within her control and completely out of it.
After the chaos of the summer, Megan barely took a break. “I was like, ‘I have to take control of this,’ ” she says. She had to remind herself, “I'm still Megan Thee Stallion.” And as soon as she could, she returned to what made her Meg. She performed, she recorded, she Instagrammed her hot-girl activities with her friends. She made big statements. And she reminded herself—and her fans and detractors—that she could handle the topsy-turvy moments not because of who she'd become, but because of who she's been all along.
She often attributes lyrical and sonic inspiration to Southern male artists like Juicy J and Pimp C. Her mom would play Three 6 Mafia, and Megan would study the themes: money, sex, power, high-quality liquor. She heard men rap about, as she says, “what they are gonna do to a girl, or how confident he is, or how tough he is,” and that matrilineal influence reminded her that she could do it too, and better. She thought, “ ‘Damn, this would really be something good if a girl was saying this.’ ”
With Megan, it's never just the words. She has a way of delivering filthy lyrics that can absolutely knock you flat. It's the way she curls her lips while she says a line or raises her eyebrow right before she drops down in a squat. As a performer, she doesn't ask for permission or forgiveness or even confirmation. “I know this about me,” she says. “This is my pleasure, this is my vagina; I know this vagina bomb. Sometimes you just got to remind people that you're magical and everything about you down to your vagina and to your toes is magical.” In the grand tradition of Trina, Lil' Kim, Missy Elliott, Jill Scott, and other female artists who write lyrics that simply drip with horn, Megan's message—and the way she shares it—isn't for men.
“I feel like a lot of men just get scared when they see women teaching other women to own sex for themselves,” she says. “Sex is something that it should be good on both ends, but a lot of times it feels like it's something that men use as a weapon or like a threat. I feel like men think that they own sex, and I feel like it scares them when women own sex”.
Megan Thee Stallion (Megan Jovon Ruth Pete) is only twenty-seven. You know that she is going to go down in history and join the highest ranks. A modern-day Rap idol who will reach the same sort of success levels as legends like Missy Elliott and Ms. Lauryn Hill. Good News is a statement as strong as any released in 2020. Critics raved about the album. This is what NME said when sitting down with it:
“When she’s not enlisting A-list R&B stars for a song, Megan continues to boast about her sexual prowess on ‘Work That’, a fun club-friendly track that would definitely hurt your knees if you tried to do Megan’s signature rocking squat to it. Speeding up Louisiana rapper Juvenile’s forgotten 2006 bedroom classic ‘Rodeo’, the song continues in the original’s tradition – with a little more vulgarity (“He like it when I lick that, sit down, look back”). ‘Rodeo’ was a ‘hot girl’ anthem around 15 years before Megan Thee Stallion coined that phrase (from the song’s purred intro: “I know all y’all hot girls is tuned in right now”) and here the head hot girl transforms the track into a jubilant celebration of sexual expression: “Bitch, touch them toes, bitch, get that dough / If you in love with your body, bitch, take off your clothes.”
This attitude appears, too, on the buoyant ‘Suga’, which sees Megan wink, “invest in this pussy, boy, support Black business” over a jokey, marching synth line. ‘Intercourse’ continues the theme lyrical, though the track, featuring Popcaan – one of Jamaica’s musical veterans – sees Megan Thee Stallion explore dancehall, a perhaps unexpected move. It’s not totally successful, her signature verses bumping up against the dancehall instrumental created by acclaimed DJ Mustard, sometimes feeling like two songs jammed together, but it is exciting to hear Megan Pete testing the boundaries of her musical template.
For all the sex positivity and club-ready anthems, though, there are glimpses of that tone was first introduced with ‘Shots Fired’: on the lithe ‘Go Crazy’, Megan admits “the hate turned me to a monster, so I guess I’m evil now”, while Detroit rapper Big Sean (the song also features Georgia’s 2 Chainz) reiterates the price of fame when he asks, “How many besties done upped and left me?”. In the main, however, this debut finds Megan Thee Stallion determined to retain her freewheeling positivity in a difficult year. And isn’t that the sound of 2020?”.
I will end up with CLASH’s take on Good News. I listen to the album now and love it as much as I did in 2020. I do feel more people need to know about and see where Megan Thee Stallion came from (even though she did put out E.P.s and mixtapes prior to 2020):
“Megan Thee Stallion has already occupied several different roles in her career, but she’s never truly been seen in her 360. From Tina Snow to Hot Girl Meg, she’s been pegged in different areas, allowed a portion of the success she deserves by this industry, while also remaining hemmed in, bound by broader expectations. A lengthy, endlessly inspired, expertly curated full length, ‘Good News’ explodes those definitions, and finds Megan Thee Stallion asserting full control – and it’s a joy to behold.
The Texan artist leans on her Southern roots for the production, brusk and up-front, balancing her undeniable ambition with a raw sonic aesthetic that affords space for experimentation while retaining a real sense of definition. ‘Shots Fired’ is an outrageous introduction, while the pace doesn’t let up until emphatic close ‘Girls In The Hood’.
Meg’s character is the centre for the creative cosmos on ‘Good News’, which emphasises the riveting nature of her self-expression, and her canny ear as a cultural curator. The features on show tap into her aesthetic while also magnifying it – Beyonce is obviously the star name, but SZA’s appearance on ‘Freaky Girls’ is in a world of its own.
Indeed, ‘Good News’ thrives on Meg’s ability to see beyond her own limitations. Popcaan and Mustard raise the tempature on ‘Mustard’, while Big Sean and 2 Chainz link up on the stadium-filling ‘Go Crazy’. Never one to be over-awed, Megan Thee Stallion works with a clear sense of structured – as far as major league 2020 rap releases go, this is one of the most thorough, astute, and exact in its structure.
That said, the album’s peak often belong to Megan Thee Stallion alone. Take the raw, unrelenting flow that attacks ‘Circles’ for instance, or the sweetness she can adopt, and even transcend on ‘Sugar Baby’ or later highlight ‘Don’t Rock Me To Sleep’. She’s able to unveil different layers to her persona, all while bringing these elements together into something defined, and potent.
At times, ‘Good News’ can be almost overwhelming in its creative intensity. The velocity of the Texan’s attack never drops, a sustained assault that is staggering in its directness – even after multiple listens, the empowerment message of ‘Body’ can still stun, particularly given the broader context of Meg’s experiences in 2020.
Raw and ruthless, ‘Good News’ is the sound of Megan Thee Stallion pushing against the boundaries imposed on her until they break. Embracing some of the viral tropes that surround her, she’s able to own them, and transcend them, before moving on; she’s working at her own pace, owning her own destiny. The latest headlines are in: ‘Good News’ is a triumph, and a late contender for Album Of The Year.
9/10”.
A masterpiece debut album from the incomparable Megan Thee Stallion, she may have even topped it with this year’s Traumatize. A remarkable artist whose music will endure for years and inspire so many young rappers coming through, Good News should be in everyone’s collection. Not only was it one of the best albums of 2020. It is one of the best albums…
OF the past ten years.