Traumazine - Megan Thee Stallion: Review
Megan Thee Stallion
is a Texas rapper who has been pretty much impossible to ignore over the past few years. With numerous hit songs displaying her uncompromising artistry and big personality as well as some very public dramas unfolding around her. Traumazine is Megan's 2nd studio album following 2020's Good News and a number of EPs and mixtapes released in the years before and since.
Review by Lav:
Like MANY great artists before her Megan knows her way around a great single. Her hard-hitting performance style and creative wordplay have served her well in releasing both hit songs and critical smashes over the past few years. However, like many other great artists this hasn't really translated that well into her full-length material. Whether it's her debut album, EP's like Suga and Tina Snow, or mixtapes like Fever and Something For Thee Hotties everything that makes Megan great on one particular song fails to get stretched out to the length of a full record. While Traumazine may be her most coherent and consistent project yet, that's a lot bar to clear and a lot of the flaws that have plagued her full-length material persist here.
If you know one thing about Megan it's probably that she is famously a total bad bitch who doesn't take any shit and whose catchphrase "Hot Girl Summer" took off in 2019 and never let go. That's the exact artist who shows up on the records de-facto closing track and de-facto lead single Plan B, one of Megan's best songs to date. It's also a sentiment that the record opens up with on NDA which is pretty much the exact kind of introduction you'd expect with a parade of confrontations and challenges to pretty much anyone in Megan's wake.
This kind of track dominates a LOT of the first half of the record but unfortunately it never quite reaches the level of the opener. Songs like Not Nice and Gift & A Curse are very familiar territory for Megan but without the same fire or intensity it starts to seem like they don't even believe themselves. Who Me on the other hand actually does deliver some great bars particularly in reference to Megan and Tory Lanez shooting incident, but it also be as catchy or hard-hitting as I'd like.
The record sports a number of solid features even if sometimes they don't take the next step. Budget was a collaboration I was excited for given how good of a year Latto has had so far. While the track is okay I don't think either artist is really bringing their A-game which is a shame because there's a lot of potential in both this beat and this pairing. Key Glock shows up on Ungrateful, another banger full of fast flows and bars prepared to take on pretty much all challengers. His reserved flow is a bit of a hard contrast with Megan's intensity but I've heard far worse.
Later on the record there's Pressurelicious which sports a solid Future feature and the two are better together than I would have imagined. In contrast Star has a Lucky Daye feature and it also might be the worst song Megan has ever released. Megan's fragile singing and the rickety ass beat never give the song a chance and I'm really not sure how this made the cut.
The best features on the record and really all the best songs on the album in general come when Megan decides to vary up her style a bit. Scary with Rico Nasty is definitely the albums best deep cut. It's a horror themed banger full of memorable refrains and overflowing with their charisma. Consistency takes everything in a bit more R&B inspired direction with Jhene Aiko on the hook. The best part of the song is really the whole theme of just wanting someone who can give you both good dick and emotional awareness consistently.
Her is a straight up hip-house song which is apparently the sound of the summer. The best part are the exciting verses and while the repetition on the hook didn't grab me right away it did get better the more I listened to it. After that point it turns to the most sensual cuts on the album and I like them both quite a bit. Ms. Nasty feels like a spiritual sequel to one of my favorite Megan features on the DaBaby song Nasty. It's got an irresistible hook and a murky instrumental but really the line that steals the show is the one where Megan's competition "hold the dick the way she hold a glock." Similarly Red Wine delivers a sexually charged sentiment with even more memorable lyrical gems throughout.
Meanwhile on the records more personal cuts Megan proves she can do more than just slay indefinitely. Anxiety is a great moment where she acknowledges that there's such a thing as bad days. It isn't anything revolutionary but it helps complete the character of Megan that's on display throughout the album. Flip Flop opens with a reference to Megan's mother who passed away in one of the most serious moments on the album. She also sings on the hook and while it's a very gentle vocal style she still does a solid job.
I have mixed feelings on the way the album ends. Neither Southside Royalty Freestyle or Sweetest Pie are necessarily bad songs but they feel more like bonus features on a DVD than a part of the actual tracklist. Maybe it's because Plan B would be the perfect true closer but neither Southside which is a posse cut that tributes the city of Houston or Sweetest Pie which is just a Dua Lipa song that happened to be a mid-level chart hit, fit in on Traumazine.
For every problem Megan solves on Traumazine there's another one that persists. While I can certainly say it's her best studio album to date I also have to wonder if she might just be a singles artist forever. Given that she already exists within a strange limbo of the single driven pop music world and the album driven hip-hop world it feels like her continued inability to deliver a truly great studio album speaks volumes. Despite it all there are plenty of moments in the tracklist here where her talent and individualism is on display in all caps and there really isn't anything, or anyone out there who can replace that. 6/10
Album Cover Review by Tyler Judson:
This cover is different for Megan and I like the idea. The execution is a little cookie cutter and I've seen it done before but it's at least a solid image. I wish there was color or something to make it pop. The whole thing feels lifeless and not very dynamic. The wasted black space at the top could've been filled by some cool type or branding to make it a lot cleaner. 4/10
For more hip hop check out my review of Latto's 777 here
