An artist changing their sound is nothing new. Taylor Swift developed her sound from country to pop and Beyoncé recently dropped a whole ass country album after running hip-hop for decades. It happens all the time, whether fans like it or not.
One artist who recently switched their sound for a track is the one and only Megan Thee Stallion, and I don’t think it received enough love. This week’s album review is a track review. What’s the vibe you ask? Well, this one is for those who have experience with cheaters, opportunists, depression, and pure rage. Let’s take a look at Meg’s 2023 track “Cobra”.
When I close my eyes to this track, I picture Megan Thee Stallion loading her lyrical weapon and taking a straight shot at each of her opps one by one with precision. She tears into the people around her describing her depression, her deceased parents, being cheated on, and her creeping alcoholism, all of which are ignored by opportunists who are just happy to reap the benefits of her talent.
“Long as everybody gettin’ paid, right?” she asks, describing the way that she’s realized she could die from her issues, and even then would nobody even notice what’s wrong. This isn’t the first time Meg’s been this real, and this is why she is one of my favorite rappers in the business. Her lyricism in “Cobra” bears a similarity to her 2022 track “Anxiety,” where she also laid her mental health issues out for us to see.
Strikingly, this track’s lyrics are laid to a beat that is heavily composed of guitar, an unusual sound for most rap. After settling a long-time legal dispute with her former production company, Meg singlehandedly funded the entire “Cobra” project. This includes the hiring of 25-year-old guitarist Diggy Lessard, who is responsible for producing guitar for the entire track and the guitar solo that closes the song. The result provides a moment to reflect on what Meg has rapped, the guitar solo being just as angry as she is.
The irony is that while rapping about feeling exploited and ignored, the track didn’t take off nearly as well as her tracks normally do. While it received its fair share of love, I noticed a lot of hate too, mostly because of its alternative sound. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the apprehension to change, but we should all give “Cobra” another shot. It’s an astounding track, and I won’t be surprised when it appears in my Spotify wrapped later this year. 10/10, obviously.