Megan Thee Stallion did not originally intend to put out Suga last week. She had hoped to drop the project on May 2—her late mother’s birthday—and claim it as her debut album after last summer’s breakout mixtape Fever. Draped in a dark, pillowy fur on The Breakfast Club last Friday morning, she course-corrected. “I’m still working on my ‘album,’” she said, curling her fingers into air quotes. “I had to hurry up and put out an EP.”
Why? Potentially because her next opportunity to release music on her own terms was foggy. On March 1, Megan claimed that her label, 1501 Certified Entertainment, was blocking her from putting out songs. The next day, she sued 1501, seeking to terminate her deal; a Texas judge granted her a temporary restraining order against the label, allowing the album to be released. Tight and satisfying, Suga is a reminder that Megan is who she’s always told us she was, even as she grapples with what it means to be herself in public.
When Megan Thee Stallion first caught eyes in 2017 with her bombastic “Stalli Freestyle,” she declared herself a money-making, man-taking, sex-positive powerhouse. In just two years, her cutthroat bars and candid nature turned her into a lyrical frontrunner in hip-hop and a viral sensation. Suga takes stock of all the things that have changed for the 25-year-old, with millions “tuned the fuck in” to her professional and personal lives as she navigates business, pleasure, and loss. Like Lil Kim, Beyoncé, and Nicki Minaj before her, Megan channels rage, pomp, and sensuality through alter egos. If her alter ego Tina Snow was a boss—grown, sexy, and intimidating—and Hot Girl Meg was her more debaucherous side, Suga is “a girl who’s going through it but getting through it.”
Megan tackles fame and pain with sharp, clear raps. Album starter “Ain’t Equal” jumps into her new circumstances: life under the microscope, without her mother or great-grandmother’s support. Though she spent the past year getting friendly with lots of women across entertainment, pouring dark liquor down the throats of Doja Cat, Lizzo, and Summer Walker, Megan is skeptical of new friends on Suga: “You bitches is weird, I don’t wanna hang,” she cooly raps on the chorus of “Stop Playing.”
She’s also spent the year being romantically linked to musicians, an athlete, and an actor. But she embraces her sexuality, even if she resents the constant speculation around it. On “Captain Hook,” she spells it out simply: “I like to drink and I like to have sex.” The song is a showcase everything Megan has built her career on: energy, humor, brashness. “Dance on the dick, now you been served/I like a dick with a little bit of curve/Hit this pussy with an uppercut/Call that nigga Captain Hook!” she says, over swashbuckling sound effects.
Though when she emulates Gunna’s flow on “Stop Playing,” it turns into a new, infectious kind of experimentation. The Neptunes-produced track is one of several moments where Megan dabbles with something calmer and more plush. On Suga, she shakes out of the comfort zone that found her frequently sampling down-south acts, and instead heads west. She enlists Kehlani on the upbeat G-funk track “Hit My Phone” and interpolates Tupac’s “Rather Be Ya Nigga” on the vulnerable “B.I.T.C.H.”
Megan also commits to more melodic overtones, in contrast to the straightforward spitting on her more recognized songs. Fully outfitted in Auto-Tune and complemented by a choir sample, Megan gives herself a lightly profane pep talk and sends up a prayer on “Crying in the Car,” a tender earworm. R&B isn’t where Meg shines brightest—it can sound basic—but together, “Crying in the Car,” “B.I.T.C.H.,” and “What I Need” illustrate that Megan Thee Stallion is becoming more than a sex symbol, wig-splitter, and party starter.
Megan occasionally struggles to package new truths about her social status in the whip-smart ways she did her old ones. As far as calling someone corny goes, “Had to X some cheesy niggas out my circle like a pizza” (from “Savage”) is no “Bitch, keep talking that shit from your Honda.” But at only 24 minutes long, Suga avoids the bloating that plagued Fever, and a good-not-great song like “Rich” is over too quickly to complain much. Suga may not be remembered as a keystone in Megan Thee Stallion’s catalog, but it’s a fine portrait of an artist embracing her full self as her world changes drastically.
