Anniversaries: Good News by Megan Thee Stallion
The debut showed Megan Thee Stallion as a survivor, an empowerer, and a cultural force. Good News is the sound of a Black woman turning the page on a dark chapter of her life.
With Good News, Megan Thee Stallion had a blast of joy and defiance at the end of a turbulent year. By that time, Megan had ascended from breakout star to cultural phenomenon: she notched two No. 1 singles (the viral, body-positive “Savage” remix with Beyoncé and the racy club anthem “WAP” with Cardi B), became a social media sensation, and even penned a New York Times op-ed demanding respect for Black women. All this happened while she was recovering from a traumatic incident, being shot in the feet in July 2020, and weathering public drama around it. In that context, Good News felt triumphant. Its very title signaled a positive turnaround, and the music within doubled down on Megan’s strengths: relentlessly upbeat bangers, audacious lyricism, and an embrace of hip-hop tradition. Now, several years later, Good News is a vibrant time capsule of Megan’s rise, and a benchmark in the evolving landscape of 2020s hip-hop.
Right from the opening seconds, Good News asserts Megan’s agency and addresses controversy head-on. “Shots Fired,” the opening track, flips the beat of The Notorious B.I.G.’s classic 1995 diss track “Who Shot Ya?” and transforms it into Megan’s scathing response to her shooter because this leprechaun bitch ass don’t even deserve a name-drop. Over that ominous, ringing instrumental—a piece of hip-hop history repurposed—Megan unloads with ferocious wit. “Imagine people lyin’ ‘bout shootin’ a real woman just to save face,” she spits, pointedly never naming the man in question but leaving no doubt. The diss is steeped in tradition (Biggie’s song was itself a notorious subliminal shot in a rap feud), yet Megan makes it fiercely personal. Hearing it now, after the resolution of the legal saga, “Shots Fired” resonates even more powerfully. It’s the sound of a young Black woman seizing control of her narrative through skill and bravado. This song cemented Megan’s image as a survivor who refuses to be silenced or victimized—a theme that has only grown more significant in her story.
From there, the album opens into a party-ready procession of tracks driven by booming bass, sassy humor, and Megan’s inimitable confidence. The prevailing mood of Good News is unapologetic celebration. Even as Megan made headlines for darker reasons, she ensured the music remained defiantly fun. Re-listening in the mid-2020s, the album’s relentlessly upbeat pulse still hits hard. With “Circles” and “Do It On the Tip,” it keeps the energy high with bounce-heavy beats and taunting rhymes. Megan’s flow is as agile and assured as ever, stacking punchlines and Houston slang with a freestyler’s flair. It’s as if she turned the drama in her life into fuel for fierceness on record. This creates a fascinating tension on Good News: the subtext of adversity is there if you know her backstory, but on the surface, the music remains a celebration of being young, sexy, and on top of the world.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Good News is how it flirts with pop and melodic sounds without losing Megan’s edge. Nowhere is this more evident than on “Don’t Rock Me to Sleep,” a sugary, synth-splashed tune that marked a sharp stylistic departure for the Hot Girl. Over a glossy upbeat groove, Megan switches from her usual rapid-fire rap to breezy singing, crooning an R&B-tinged kiss-off to a disappointing lover. At the time of release, “Don’t Rock Me to Sleep” stood out like neon in a tracklist full of hard rap cuts—a bold Day-Glo experiment that had some listeners divided. Megan herself has expressed pride in this detour, calling the song one of her favorites because it’s something new. She keeps the lyrics cheeky (“Skip to the part that you really mean,” she urges, cutting through sweet talk) and her delivery has a winking confidence that sells the song’s premise. On the flip side, the album’s penultimate track “Outside” embodies the tougher swagger that is core to Megan Thee Stallion’s persona—and it has arguably proven a more lasting fit for her image. Built on a slinky, classic-sounding beat (courtesy of Juicy J) and an insidious electronic piano riff, “Outside” finds Megan at her braggadocious best. The song’s hook has her declaring, “I ain’t for the streets, ‘cause bitch, I am the street!”—an instantly iconic flip of the insult that she’s “for the streets,” turning it into a statement of dominance.
Beyond its present-day resonances, Good News is also a love letter to hip-hop’s past. Megan Thee Stallion may be a fresh face of her generation, but she’s a hip-hop traditionalist at heart—the daughter of a Houston rapper mother, raised on the Southern rap canon, and a proven freestyler who came up sharpening her skills in cyphers. Throughout Good News, she affirms those roots by sampling and interpolating a litany of classics. In an era when many newcomers chase viral new sounds, Megan chose to anchor her debut album in the sounds of the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s rap and R&B, putting her own twist on them. Listening back now, those samples and callbacks stand out as deliberate bridges between generations. They’re not subtle Easter eggs—they’re loud and proud homages, almost like Megan planting her flag in hip-hop history.
Consider the roll call of references: Good News sprinkles in everything from hardcore gangsta rap to New Jack Swing. Megan boldly flips Eazy-E’s West Coast staple “Boyz-n-the-Hood” into her female-powered single “Girls in the Hood,” turning a 1987 gangland narrative into a 2020 feminist flex about running her neighborhood. She also tips her hat to Naughty By Nature’s party anthem “O.P.P.” (1991) on the frenetic posse cut “Go Crazy,” where a sample of that Jackson 5-lifted hook lurks in the beat and keeps the old-school flavor alive. On “Work That,” she reaches back to 2006 and borrows the infectious bounce of Juvenile’s strip-club jam “Rodeo,” riding its distinctive synth riff to craft a 2020 update. Megan openly revels in these connections. “I love Juvenile. I love everything that he put out. I’m a hard girl, and I just felt like we really needed a 2020 version of it, like a 2020 girl flip for it,” she explained, emphasizing how she wanted to give “Rodeo” a fresh feminist spin.
The album’s most striking sample-fueled tracks are tributes to Southern rap royalty and R&B sirens that influenced Megan’s style. “Sugar Baby” unabashedly flips “Bad Bitch”—the 2005 Dirty South hit by Webbie featuring Trina—into a new anthem for bossed-up women. Over producer Helluva’s updated spin on that beat, Megan delivers brassy taunts and sexual bravado that would make Trina proud. “We needed that,” Megan said of using “Bad Bitch” as the foundation—“Like that song is already an anthem, and of course, it already has a lot of sauce, its own sauce, so it wasn’t nothing that I really just had to do besides get on there and put my Hot Girl shit on it. Shout out to Webbie. Shout out to Trina. They was my inspiration.” That direct acknowledgment tells you these samples are anything but lazy callbacks. They’re respectful nods to the artists who paved the way for her.
Likewise, on “Freaky Girls” (featuring SZA), Megan resurrects Adina Howard’s sultry R&B classic “Freak Like Me” from 1995. With production by Juicy J giving it a G-funk bounce, Megan and SZA trade verses and vocals, celebrating uninhibited sexuality. It feels like a generational baton-pass: Adina Howard’s sex-positive blueprint filtered through Megan’s modern Houston attitude. The result remains as catchy and “immaculate” as on first listen, reinforcing the timeless essence of owning one’s sexuality. Each sample on Good News serves a purpose in reinforcing Megan’s identity. They broadcast that this 25-year-old phenom didn’t emerge from a vacuum—she’s fluent in the sounds and icons of hip-hop, and she’s not shy about bringing them along on her ride to superstardom. Far from being mere nostalgia bait, these interpolations still feel organic and earned because Megan attacks them with such genuine reverence and raw skill.
Megan balances these familiar hooks and sample-driven choruses with razor-sharp verses that showcase why she became hip-hop’s premier new star of her era. It’s a balance of sugar and spice: insidiously simple, chant-along hooks on the surface, and dense, witty rap craftsmanship underneath. Re-examining tracks now, one can appreciate how well this formula has held up. Take “Body”—at the time, its chorus of “Body-ody-ody-ody…” repeated ad infinitum was polarizing, equal parts addictive earworm and exaggerated meme. The hook, with its almost nursery-rhyme simplicity, served its purpose perfectly: it became a viral catchphrase and a TikTok sensation, ensuring the song’s place in pop culture. Yet if you peel back the hook, Megan’s verses on “Body” are full of cleverness and attitude. Over a frenetic, club-ready beat (courtesy of Lil Ju), she celebrates voluptuous figures and sexual confidence with tongue-in-cheek flair, tossing off lines like “The category is body”—a playful nod to ballroom culture and a boast about her own curves.
Similarly, “Cry Baby” mixes a simple, taunting refrain with delightfully raunchy bars. The song’s premise is built on an insidious little hook where Megan and DaFuck taunt an ex-lover for being a “cry baby” about their break-up. It’s almost childish in its sing-song wah-wah-wah melody, which makes it stick in your head instantly. But when Megan’s verse comes in, her raps are anything but child’s play—she unleashes a flurry of explicit boasts and tongue-twisting flows, displaying both lyrical dexterity and comedic timing. Her punchlines (too X-rated to quote in full) land with a mischievous grin, and the chemistry with DaFuck is electric; they trade verses with competitive zeal, trying to one-up each other’s outrageousness. The same can be said for a cut like “Work That,” where the hook (“He like it when I work that, twerk that”) is a straightforward strip-club chant, but Megan’s rapped verses overflow with personality, rapid-fire wordplay, and Houston flavor that give the song enduring replay value in the club or the car. Even “Intercourse,” one of the album’s more experimental moments, strikes a balance: it layers a gently sung, tropical hook (courtesy of Jamaican star Popcaan) over a dancehall-infused beat, but Megan anchors it with her spicy verses, adapting her cadence to the island rhythm without losing her Texan twang.
Placing Good News in historical context, it stands as a landmark for Megan Thee Stallion and a notable chapter in the evolving narrative of women in hip-hop. At its core, the record is a triumphant assertion of agency—especially remarkable given it dropped mere months after a violent incident that could have derailed her. Instead, Megan turned that painful experience into art and empowerment. The album’s release was a declaration that she would not be defined by victimhood or industry drama. This sentiment of triumph is woven throughout Good News, from the confrontational victory lap of “Shots Fired” to the uninhibited joy of “Body” and the unabashed self-love of “Outside.” Today, that resilience reverberates strongly. In late 2022, Megan saw her day in court with the shooting incident, and the guilty verdict for the assailant validated what she had been saying all along. For fans and observers, it cast Good News in an even more powerful light—the album now feels like the first chapter in Megan’s public journey of overcoming, an artistic middle-finger to those who doubted her.
Beyond that, Good News helped shape the narrative of Megan Thee Stallion not just as a hot rapper of the moment, but as an empowerer and cultural force. In the post-Good News years, Megan’s influence is seen in how boldly other female rappers embrace their sexuality and assertiveness. Of course, women in rap have been doing that for decades (from Lil’ Kim to Trina to Nicki Minaj), but Megan brought it into the 2020s with a fresh fervor and academic articulation—remember, she was writing op-eds about protecting Black women while dropping twerk anthems. Good News epitomized that dual mission: it’s a saucy, explicit good time on the surface, but also an exercise in a young Black woman proudly owning her voice, her body, and her power. After her debut, she went on to win three Grammys (including Best New Artist), landed major brand endorsements, performed on global stages, earned a college degree, and became a symbol of confidence for a generation of “hotties.” Megan chose joy, confidence, and legacy, and in doing so, set the tone for the years of triumph to follow.