ALBAWABA - This album is mostly devoid of humor and indulges in navel-gazing instead of the feel-good vibes of Hot Girl Summer and WAP.
At the beginning of the decade, Megan Pete became famous for providing exciting, passionate, and upbeat entertainment.
Collaborations with Beyoncé on the Grammy-winning Savage Remix, Nicki Minaj and Cardi B on the earwormy, meme-worthy Hot Girl Summer, and the hilariously outrageous WAP, respectively, brought a sense of lightheartedness and community to the rapper's early hits, despite her constant fixation on promoting word of her own sex appeal and appetites.
After a few years, things have become rather nasty. According to Megan's self-titled third album, in which the 29-year-old's latest song, "Hiss," landed at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, he has never been more alone at the top of his game.
Although the rapper's flow is pleasantly quick and snappy, Megan mostly serves as a chilly, crazily repetitious sermon about its creator's superiority, lamenting the estrangement that being "that bitch" causes. However, the album does serve as a demonstration of skill.
Both Hot Girl Summer and WAP's irreverent camaraderie have vanished: jealousy drives Megan's life, which is characterized by fake friends (she's feuding with Minaj right now), incestuous relationships, and constant betrayal.
One cannot help but be envious of her, what with her Amazonian beauty, fortune, and achievements (the rapper claims that "stallion" is southern US slang for a "tall fine girl"). The musical zeitgeist is based on themes of vulnerability, trauma, and overtly personal details. But when Megan plays it, it becomes really unsettling.
On the 2022 album Flip Flop, the "sad as fuck" rapper was dealing with the loss of her mother and the naughty consequences of stardom. In the same year, she described the overwhelming media attention as "torture" when testifying in the trial of fellow rapper Tory Lanez, who was ultimately found guilty of shooting her in the foot.
No progress has been made. On the admirably honest lead track "Cobra," she laments, "How can somebody so blessed want to slit their wrist?" She utters these words over the muted screech of an electric guitar.
Megan reaches her creative pinnacle on the shockingly chill Cobra, which has a super-crunchy guitar and fluttering synthesizers; nonetheless, BAS's accelerated Teena Marie sample is pleasantly evocative of early Kanye.
Original poetry is harder to come by. Even though Otaku Hot Girl removed the anime allusions at the last minute due to copyright laws, the lack of originality and humor is distracting.
She enjoys herself to the fullest on Down Stairs DJ, despite her undeniable talent. This dedication to onanism seems like the melancholy zenith of this oppressively navel-gazing rap phenomenon's isolation; given by our lonely, harsh, and seemingly friendless narrator, what would have been a powerful homage to self-love takes on a new meaning.
