Megan Sweetens Her Beef, A Harajuku DJ, And The Resurrection Of Cupcakke
3/9/20 - Happy Monday Femcee Fans !
New Album Review: MTS Drops Suga Amidst Label Dispute
After an explosive breakout in 2019 thanks to hits like “Hot Girl Summer” and “Big Ole Freak”, 2020 was poised to be the year of Thee Stallion. Instead, for the past several months Megan’s been embroiled in a dispute with her label 1501 Certified Entertainment over contract renegotiation, with 1501 preventing the rapper from releasing new music. “Soon as I said, ‘I want to renegotiate my contract’, everything went left. It just all went bad…So now they’re telling me that I can’t drop no music.”
While Megan’s still underway with legal proceedings, this past Wednesday the Harris County State district judge overseeing the case struck down her label’s bid to block the release of new music, and two days later Megan dropped the nine-song EP Suga. MTS says she still has a full-length album coming and that this is just a teaser, but Suga has enough fire on it to hold over Stallion fans for awhile.
The album opens with a hypnotic beat and a moment of earnest vulnerability: “I lost my mommy and my granny in the same month” raps Megan quickly transitioning to a boast: “a bunch of bitches talking down cuz I’m coming up”. It’s these kinds of bars where Meg excels, able to vacillate between her relatable, congenial side and her cocky, freaky side. The EP really picks up on Track 2, the addictive “Savage” that’ll make you bop your head with confidence and tout that you too are feeling “classy, bougie, ratchet...sassy, moody, nasty.” And then there’s the simmering “B.I.T.C.H”, already climbing up the charts, in which over a 70’s funk beat Megan poignantly raps “You know you can’t control me baby, you need a real one in your life, them bitches ain’t gon’ give it to you right.”
Overall, Megan comes off here as sharper-tongued, more multi-faceted, and displaying newfound confidence in her artistic voice. If this is a sign of what’s to come, I can’t wait to see what she cooks up next. But for now, be sure to start blasting these tracks while racking up respect for Megan, who in response to the court ruling, wrote: “To be clear, I will stand up for myself and won’t allow two men to bully me.” Relatable AF.
Artist To Know: Alice Longyu Gao Will Quench Your Thirst
Listen to 10 seconds of a track by Alice Longyu Gao and you’ll feel like you’ve never heard anything quite like it and also wonder if Gao is even from this planet or has just touched down from another celestial body. Look at Gao’s vibrant photos or watch her trippy videos and those thoughts and feelings will only be affirmed and amplified.
With a background that includes studying Asian Religious studies at Harvard and classical music at Shanghai Conservatory of Music, one wouldn’t expect where Gao’s ended up. Now billed as “NYC’s Coolest Chinese Harajuku-Inspired DJ” (are there others she’s competing with?) Gao presents as a unique, eccentric, and highly conceptual performance artist and musician, who happens to also spit sassy rap bars.
I highly recommend checking out this pair of insane tracks of hers: First, “Rich Bitch Juice”, in which Gao exudes a swaggering, brassy bad girl persona, defensively rapping: “I’m fucking tired, don’t you tell me to be happy, don’t you dare talk to me” all over a mechanical PC-music trap beat. And then there’s “Dumb Bitch Juice”, which opens with a screeching upbeat tempo and Gao on full offense, hilariously tauting: “You should go back, go back home, go back home, cry, go back home, chug your dumb bitch juice”. Be sure to check out her videos, as the visuals are a must!
New Track Alert: Cupcakke Rises From The Ashes
Back in September 2019, Cupcakke - the rapper gifted with the ability to write extremely filthy but insanely witty lyrics - gave all her fans a major scare. Known for releasing new music on a weekly basis, Cupcakke tearfully out of the blue announced her retirement in an Instagram Live video, stating she’d no longer be releasing music, would cancel all her tours, and would pull her existing music from all platforms.
All of Cupcakke’s social media accounts were subsequently deleted, leaving fans concerned for the rapper’s wellbeing, as Cupcakke had previously posted about her struggles with mental health and was even hospitalized once after a suicide threat. Thankfully, however, after six months Cupcakke’s come out of retirement, hopefully having used the time away to heal. She’s turned back on her social media accounts, posted new pics where she looks visibly healthier, and dropped a new single this past Friday called “Lawd Jesus”.
While acoustically “Lawd Jesus” isn’t Cupcakke’s best work, its power resonates in the strength of her lyrics, entwined deeply with her recent struggles and triumphant comeback. “I went sick and got fraud but I had to fight all my demons/that shit was real challengin”, she spits. What shines through most is Cupcakke’s confident voice and boy, are her bars as witty, and smutty as ever -“When you suckin’ his thing, I’m outside pulling strings like a bitch playin’ kites” - is classic Cupcakke wordplay. Though I’m elated to see Cupcakke return, for now I’ll loop back to some of her classics (see links below for a couple!) while I wait for her to rapid-fire drop new and more polished tracks once more.