Good News

It’s all about the dog. It’s the bomb. A penthouse at the top of the charts. Houston, we DON’T have a problem! No problem at all! Houston can now count on Texan Megan Thee Stallion, 25 years old, a child of this increasingly cool city, already rapping around the hip-hop planet after a successful push. The flow is perfect, sharp, feline, hard, borderline delinquent, conquering, predatory, tough, super sexy. Roughness and finesse, hypersexuality and feminism are paradoxical roommates here but… no break on the horizon! “Shake that booty, bitch,” commands Lil Durk before being abruptly fired by his interlocutor, a fearsome alpha female, certainly from a good family but having been with some tough guys – one of them shot her, straight up. ”I’m a big girl and I won’t cry,” this strong woman sings on “Don’t Rock Me to Sleep”. The dozen or so artists invited to the microphone is ideal for this kind of exercise: Beyoncé, SZA, Young Thug, to name only the most famous. Megan Jovon Ruth Pete (her real name) appears on all beatmaking credits, among the 18 artisans recruited for this function – Cool & Dre, Lil Ju, Avedon, DA Got That Dope, Jucy J, Cody Tarplay, Helluva, etc. – and she’s one of the most famous artists in the world. No less than 125 compositional sources (including several archives) are an integral part of these 17 tracks. In spite of this abundance, coherence is the order of the day in this ambitious production. This girl has definitely thought of everything! Generally speaking, it’s built with big computerized bass, old-school percussive effects, solid synth chords, and a host of brilliantly integrated microinsertions. The rap of this new queen of hip-hop is matched by her stubborn vocals, and most of these tracks will be megahits for the right reasons. Note that the remix of “Savage”, from the Suga EP and featuring Beyoncé, is simply killer. “I’m a savage… Classy, candle, ratchet… Sassy, moody, nasty…”