‘Big Ole freak’: The Megan Thee Stallion song that makes her feel sexy
Megan Thee Stallion is no stranger to making waves in the music industry. With her fearless and self-assured lyrics, she’s not afraid to define what it means to be a woman in hip-hop today. It’s no surprise that Megan has faced her adversities and challenges after being successful in the music industry. But, after creating a cultural phenomenon of a ‘Hot Girl Summer’ in 2019, she was seen cropping up more and more in the social landscape of female rappers.
Faced with the task of staying relevant during the 2020 Covid lockdowns, Megan Thee Stallion’s song ‘Savage’ was catapulted to TikTok virality. With the biggest influencers at the time creating dances and funny remixes to the song, Megan Thee Stallion was cemented as a frontrunner and one to watch.
The Houston emcee would later feature on Cardi B’s song ‘WAP’ and cause a media stir with its wildly promiscuous lyrics. Especially with the unforgettable performance of the song at the 2021 Grammy Awards, the two artists were faced with outrage from parents whose kids watched the raucous performance. Megan Thee Stallion would persist nevertheless by including Beyonce on a remix of ‘Savage’, and would later find more TikTok fame with her song ‘Mamamushi’, featuring Japanese rapper and singer Yuki Chiba.
However, in July 2020, Megan was involved in a nonfatal shooting at the hands of Tory Lanez that ultimately landed him a ten-year prison sentence. During her testimony, Megan stated: “Since I was viciously shot by the defendant, I have not experienced a single day of peace. Slowly but surely, I’m healing and coming back.”
Megan’s comeback was strong. Releasing the album Good News, she faces the discussion head-on with the first track, ‘Shots Fired’. Sampling Biggie Smalls’ ‘Who Shot Ya’, Megan calls out Tory Lanez and brings up other discourse around the shooting of Black women in America: ‘You a puss in boots // You shot a 5’10” bitch with a .22… We still ain’t got no fuckin’ justice for Breonna Taylor’.
All of this is to say that Megan Thee Stallion has had a hugely notable career since her start as Tina Snow and it proves a lot that she persists nevertheless. In ‘Big Ole Freak’, listeners see the classic Megan Thee Stallion trope, not just feeling sexy, but also finding confidence and control throughout her relationships on her own terms.
This is something that Megan has strived to portray throughout all of her music, advocating for other women not being scared to be confident in themselves. She flexes her rap skills by diversifying her pace and switching rhyme schemes, taking the stage as an up and coming rapper at the time of her early career.
‘Big Ole Freak’ was Megan’s first-ever entry into the Billboard Hot 100 in 2019. “It makes them feel free and sexy, and that’s really important,” the rapper told Billboard. “Once you make the girls happy, then you got a winner.”
Through all of her media storms and the incidents that have occurred to Megan Thee Stallion, she has proved that she is strong enough to prevail. She refused to let the 2020 Tory Lanez shooting define her and instead used that fire to gain astronomical fame. And it worked. Her most recent album, MEGAN, was marked the biggest debut rap album released by a woman in 2024.