Suga, Spice, and Everything Not Nice
“Being a Hot Girl is about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident, living YOUR truth, and being the life of the party.”
Source: Arielle Bobb-Willis for The New York Times
Young Tina Snow, also known as The H-Town Hottie, also further known as Hot Girl Meg—all of these are just a few of the self-proclaimed nicknames of the ultimate Hot Girl, Megan Thee Stallion. She is a twenty-five-year-old rapper from Houston, Texas. While in college at Prairie View A&M University, then Texas Southern University, her rap career took off. Now, she is one of the biggest female rappers in the game. Since starting a successful career in 2018, she has released two EPs and one album under the 1501 Certified Entertainment record label.
Her most recent EP, released on March 6th under the record label, is entitled Suga. The album has several different sounds, showing off her ability to cross over into different styles of contemporary rap. In the bio for the EP on Apple Music, her sound is described to match the styles of Detroit street rap, West Coast G-Funk, and Atlanta drip music also known as trap music. Her style of rap matches her confidence and charisma. She brings vivacity back to the rap game.
Her ability to be unapologetically herself comes across as you listen to each song throughout the album. Starting off with her own flair on “Savage” where she describes herself as, “Classy, bougie, ratchet.” That is followed up by the Tupac and West Coast inspired song, “B.I.T.C.H,” where she reminds listeners to be that girl.
The mood slightly shifts as you continue to the last two songs on the album where listeners hear a more emotional Megan in “Crying in the Car,” where she talks about how hard she has worked to be where she is today.
The album only has nine songs and caps at exactly 24 minutes. To me, it leaves you desiring just a little bit more from someone who is alleged to be one of the hottest rappers in the game. However, I can’t help but think that this may be due to the issues Stallion has with her record label and contract.
On the same day of her EP release, Megan announced that she sued her record label about her contract, and also because they were not allowing her to release new music. On an Instagram Live, she stated that the contract was, “not only entirely unconscionable, but ridiculously so,” it allows the label to, “literally do nothing, while at the same time taking for themselves the vast majority of [her] income from all sources.”
She went to Instagram to announce her gratitude to the Texas judge who had granted her a temporary restraining order against 1501 Certified Entertainment and its CEO, Carl Crawford.
“I’m extremely pleased that 1501 and Carl Crawford were denied the request to dissolve the court order and try to stop my music from being released…I will stand up for myself and won’t allow two men to bully me, I am NO ONE’S PROPERTY.”
Artists having issues with their record label is nothing new. You can go way back to Prince in 1993 when he changed his name to the famous “Love Symbol” to break contractual obligations from Warner Bros., stunt merchandise production, and release music. Or, there are more recent cases like Kesha who is currently in an ongoing court battle to be released from Sony and her producer, Dr. Luke. This issue is not susceptible to one genre of music.
Although she fought and won against her record label in court, it’s hard to say whether or not this EP still fell victim to the issues at hand. With such a variety of sounds, it’s hard to consider this a cohesive piece of work. Nonetheless, you can’t help and enjoy the tracks produced because she doesn’t hesitate to embody the Hot Girl aesthetic. Take 24 minutes out of your day—it’s barely the length of a Netflix show you probably have playing in the background right now—and listen to the album. Your choice.