Megan Thee Stallion - Fever (2019)

Megan Thee Stallion has rightfully earned a lot of buzz over the past year. With her Tina Snow EP earning an incredible amount of acclaim, and becoming the first female artist signed to 300 — the machine that put Migos on the map — all eyes were on the 24-year-old Houston native. Thankfully, her debut studio album, Fever, lives up to the hype.

With her penchant for the sounds of hometown heroes, notably Pimp C (Tina Snow was a play on his Tony Snow moniker), she ultimately remains true to a localized vibe that definitely speaks to fans who may have drifted more toward an act like La Chat as opposed to Foxy Brown back in the '90s. In fact, the influence of Three 6 Mafia abounds — just listen to "Dance" or "Big Drank."

It's this gloss of Southern aesthetic interconnected with her bars, which cannot be overstated (she can rap), that gives this record incredible energy. She never once sounds bored, or off of her game.

Fever only has two features, DaBaby on "Cash Shit" and Juicy J (who also produces three songs on the LP) on "Simon Says." The rest of the record is all Megan — no pop-rap or radio-ready fare.

At the end of the day, this project shows Megan Thee Stallion in her most refined element — confident, powerful and never submissive. Probably best encapsulated in the album's second cut, which samples the viral clip of (then) 7-year-old Latarian Milton proclaiming his love of doing "hoodrat things with his friends," this album veers away from too much personal or socio-political depth.

Instead, she's crafted a raunchy, fun-filled soundtrack for (a Houston) summer, even if it is a less overt love letter to her hometown than, say, Travis Scott's Astroworld. It would be unfair to say she is in a lane of her own, because Cardi B and City Girls (to name a few) exist. But Fever is every bit as good as you've heard it is. If you're somehow still wilfully slumbering on Megan, it's just become even harder to do so.