Track Review: Megan Thee Stallion Drops "Girls In The Hood"
2020 has already been a banner year for Megan Thee Stallion. Her SUGA EP birthed three hits in "Captain Hook," "B.I.T.C.H.," and "Savage," the latter of which became Megan's first #1 single thanks to the ubiquitous Beyoncé remix. Now, smartly capitalizing off of this momentum, Megan has unleashed a new song to usher in the summer: "Girls In The Hood."
Built around a sample of Eazy-E's "Boyz-n-the-Hood," Megan's new single is a tour de force of charisma and star power. Sure, her collaborations with Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, and Normani have helped broaden her audience, but her she's always been a star. The new single works because of the sample flip, but also, and more importantly, because of Megan's inimitable charisma. The brash production leans into the storied history of gangsta rap and the legacy of Eazy-E and N.W.A. After all, "Boyz-n-the-Hood" is Eazy's debut solo single. Megan holds her own against Scott Storch and Illadaproducer production with punchy metaphors and slick punchlines that touch on her sexual prowess, her ever-rising status, and her love for anime (yes, there's a Sasuke shoutout!). The real star of "Girls In The Hood," however, is Megan's hook. Along with the City Girls, Megan arguably has the best ear for hooks out of all of the new female rappers. She chants "I'm a hot girl, I do hot shit" with so much conviction and swagger, that you too start to believe that you're a hot girl that does hot shit. The hook melody is simple enough to sing along to and the cadence is similar to a lot of late 80s rap. In fact, for most of the song, Megan employs a similar elongated flow to that of Eazy-E.
The real triumph of "Girls In The Hood" isn't the music or the lyrics, it's the significance that comes from Megan flipping the original Eazy-E track. "Boyz-n-the-Hood" is undoubtedly a classic rap song, but it is also quite misogynistic with lyrics like: "So I grabbed the stupid bitch by her nappy-ass weave/She started talkin' shit, wouldn't you know?/Reached back like a pimp, slapped the ho." Seeing that song flipped with lyrics like "spend his income on my outfit" and "'cause the girls in the hood are always hard/Ever since sixteen, I been havin' a job" (by a sexually explicit brownskinned female rapper at that) is truly something to behold. This marks the second time this year that Megan has sampled a classic track by a male rapper. She first did it by sampling Tupac's "Ratha Be Ya Nigga" for "B.I.T.C.H.," the lead single for her SUGA EP. With these bold samples, Megan is inserting herself into a rap legacy that has always devalued and underestimated women. "Girls In The Hood" isn't Megan's best song by a long shot. Nonetheless, it does offer a few new flows from her and the production challenges her delivery (even if it gets a bit awkward in the second verse) in ways that none of her songs have before. This likely won't overtake the "Savage" remix as Meg's Song of the Summer™ contender, but it will still be a worthy addition to your daily playlist.
Score: 67
