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Megan Thee Stallion: Megan review – rap skill showcase is a sour sermon on superiority
The feelgood fun of Hot Girl Summer and WAP has been replaced by icy tales of false friends, adultery and incessant betrayal in a broadly humourless, navel-gazing album
Though always preoccupied with spreading word of her own sex appeal and appetites, there was a light-heartedness and communality to the rapper’s early hits, whether she was teaming up with Beyoncé for the double Grammy-winning Savage Remix, or joining forces with Nicki Minaj and Cardi B for the earwormy, meme-worthy Hot Girl Summer and hilariously outrageous WAP respectively. This record does work as a skill showcase – the rapper’s flow is satisfyingly brisk and crisp – but Megan mainly acts as an icy, insanely repetitive sermon on its creator’s own superiority, as she bemoans the alienation being “ that bitch” results in. Yet what might have been an empowering tribute to self-love takes on a different meaning when delivered by our forlorn, unforgiving and apparently friendless narrator; this ode to onanism feels merely like the depressing apex of this oppressively navel-gazing rap phenomenon’s isolation.
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