Suga EP - Megan Thee Stallion: Review
is a Texas based rapper who blew up last summer with her "Hot Girl Summer" catchphrase and a series of viral hit singles, all coming from her debut mixtape Fever. After popping up for a number of features and contributing to some movie soundtracks over the last few months she surprised announced a new 9 track 24 EP that followed in line with her first two official releases.
Review By Lavender:
Megan Thee Stallion mostly won me over last year, while I thought her debut mixtape was solid and nothing to incredible she proved to be fantastically consistent. When she finally teamed up with Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign to turn her marquee phrase into a song it was one of my favorite singles of the year and went even further to establish herself as one of rap music premiere bad bitches. On Suga she goes even further to prove that she may be unmatched when it comes to crafting sexually charged bangers, but she also shows some lack of versatility on numerous flopped attempts at changing up her style.
I was excited for this EP after Megan dropped a killer lead single that is still one of my favorite songs here. B.I.T.C.H has a killer hook where Megan invites her haters to call her a bitch now because they will eventually when she blows up even more. The backing vocals are slick and her attitude is absolutely badass. Most of the first half of the EP follows in this exact vein, Captain Hook has some great sword samples laced throughout the instrumental and Megan is impossibly sexy with her uncompromising attitude and great lyrics. Rich is a short but very memorable track where Megan flaunts her wealth and basically puts 90% of her male contemporaries in their place with her bars.
Ain't Equal is the opening track and basically the exact formula that has made Megan so unstoppable so far. Slick sexually charged lyrics, a high energy performance and a bouncy trap beat make the song another highlight and a great way to kick it all off. Savage is a track I liked a lot and still like to this day but in the time between my first draft of this review and it actually coming out the song has become huge on Tik Tok and everyone around me is obsessed with singing it so that doesn't help but the song still rules.
The EP only has two features and I'm not in love with either of them. Hit My Phone features Kehlani and while neither Megan or Kehlani are outright bad the two sounds they are going for on the song just do not fit together at all the the track doesn't build up any momentum and just seems like a kind of misconceived idea. Stop Playing features Gunna and is basically an auto-crooned ballad. Gunna obviously sounds way more comfortable on a song like this than Megan does and when Gunna is the highlight of your track you should already know it isn't it.
Crying In The Car is definitely the worst track here as Megan's voice is completely lathered in auto-tune that is absolutely atrocious and completely sucks all of the personality out of her performance. All of the dynamic elements of her voice and demeanor are completely stripped away and what is left is a generic forgettable trap ballad. Finally the closer What I Need is a weird bipolar track where Megan spends half the time acting like a badass who doesn't need anyone's help but then suddenly gets back in her feelings and returns to a more sung performance. I don't like the hook either the vocals are just super flat and beat the title refrain to death.
Suga is a decent 24 minute EP that could have been an amazing 15 minute EP if not for some of these super forced auto-tune ballads. I'm not sure what Megan was going for with these tracks but it is more clear than ever what has made her music infectious and where she is at her best, hopefully she sticks to it and gets even better at it going forward because she has definitely tapped into something special. 6/10
