Megan Thee Stallion – ‘Megan’ review: in all her multifaceted glory

Megan Thee Stallion is coming out of her shell and she’s doing just fine. Not that the rapper born Megan Pete has ever been a shrinking violet: the Houstonian’s 2017 breakout ‘Stalli Freestyle’ already radiated the preternatural confidence that would launch her to stardom via sensational singles ‘WAP’ and ‘Hot Girl Summer’. But ‘Megan’, her third studio album, flows with a palpably higher level of creative boldness. It’s the most vibrant and well-rounded portrait of Megan Thee Stallion we’ve seen yet.

It’s not too surprising that ‘Megan’ is the rapper’s sharpest full-length statement. Her last two albums, ‘Good News’ and ‘Traumazine’, were shadowed by deaths in Megan’s family, as well as a traumatic shooting and the resulting, protracted court trial. They were also released by 1501 Certified Entertainment, the label Megan finally split from last October after a three-year legal battle. Not only is ‘Megan’ her first independently released album (in a distribution deal with Warner that gives her control over her masters and publishing), she apparently even funded its recording. The result is an album that showcases Megan The Stallion in all her multifaceted glory: Tina Snow, the Hot Girl Coach, the H-Town Hottie and much more.

One of the most obvious personas ‘Megan’ embraces is the snake – a motif that she likes, she’s explained, because it implies an “anti-hero”. Megan revels in this, bookending the album with steely singles ‘Hiss’ and ‘Cobra’. Though Kendrick Lamar turned things up to 11, Megan was the first rapper to fire shots at Drake this year when she mocked “cosplay gangsters, fake ass accents” on ‘Hiss’ in January. She continues to let fly at her enemies on the pointed ‘Rattle’, sneering: “I ain’t worry ’bout the bitter-bitch link-up / Y’all hoes earned them seats in the fanclub.” On her last two albums, Megan was often lashing out; here, she stings with venomous precision.

The earth-scorching disses on ‘Hiss’ dominated prior discourse about Megan’s new music, but now internet ink is being feverishly spilled about ‘Otaku Hot Girl’ and ‘Mamushi’ – where the vocal anime enthusiast flies her freak flag high. Pulling together an earworm of a hook and blithe references to Jujutsu Kaisen and Naruto, ‘Otaku Hot Girl’ sounds like the shonen-spirited flex she was destined to write.

Megan has revealed that she jumped through “eight million hoops” to get the sample in ‘Otaku Hot Girl’ cleared, but the song doesn’t bear any signs of hurried rewriting. (Its appeal to anime agnostics is probably limited – though the sample related to Jujutsu Kaisen, and an iconic intro from one of the series’ voice-actors, make the song practically fanservice for fellow otakus.) Though not as effortless, ‘Mamushi’ is a change of pace for Megan, who over an icy, skeletal beat follows the swaggering lead of Yuki Chiba, the Japanese rapper formerly known as Kohh who made a viral comeback with ‘Team Tomodachi’ in February.

Over the album’s 52 minutes, Megan sprawls out, mining different aspects of her identity and personality at her leisure. It’s exciting when she enters new territory – ‘Paper Together’ proudly features her heroes and Southern rap forebears UGK, and begins with a previously vaulted verse by the late Pimp C. Listeners coming to a Megan Thee Stallion album know to expect raunchy rapping, but can also agree she still outdoes herself with masturbation and self-love anthem ‘Down Stairs DJ’. And there’s a fun twist on ‘B.A.S.’, where Megan owns up to some toxic behaviour, too, but not before unleashing another bonkers Stallion opener: “That ain’t my bae, he really more like my bidet / He like to wake up with ass in his face.”

All of these facets of Megan Thee Stallion have been on display throughout her career, from freestyles to mixtapes to studio albums. But they’ve not sounded this cohesive together till now (yes, even ‘Worthy’, with its self-empowerment mantra of a chorus and peppy pop-guitar beat). When the sizzling guitar solo rings out on ‘Cobra’, it escorts us out of the album – and heralds a fearless new era for Megan Thee Stallion.