R&B/Hip-Hop

Cardi B knows the value of a good background. After husband Offset flooded their home with rose petals, lavish flower arrangements and balloons to celebrate Cardi’s 31st birthday earlier this week, on Thursday (Oct. 12) the “Bongos” rapper made good use of the ephemeral gifts by making them a backdrop for a song tease. Lounging […]

We know Megan Thee Stallion loves spooky season because we’ve already gotten this year’s Pumpkinhead Meg picture of the rapper with a carved gourd on her melon. But in a tweet on Thursday (Oct. 12) fans thought the “Bongos” MC was scaring up some more than just Hottieween vibes and was possibly teasing news about her next era with a Halloween-themed teaser in which she appeared to be baring her vampire fangs.
The post in question featured the cryptic message “Let’s begin…” accompanied by a sliver of a picture with a slime green filter that animated into a 3-second video in which Meg bared her sharp teeth. The clip did not have any sound, but it appeared that Meg had more to say in a series of Instagram posts with more scary scenes.

A trio of posts revealed the words “Act One” with the O comprised of a red snake swallowing its own tail. The caption on the first was a snake emoji and when you clicked through it revealed a video of a white snake coiled on someone’s hand, a close-up of Megan’s face and a third of her wrists covered in dangerously thorny bracelets. The second added the caption “Begin [snake emoji],” as well as a sliver of a shot in which a green-skinned Megan was seen reclining on a blood red divan, her long nails sharpened to murderous points.

It also appeared to reveal more of what looked like a music video, with sections of a shot in which Meg bared her vamp fangs again, before repurposing the X (formerly Twitter) vamp video and adding an image of a bowl of fruit and other totems on some kind of altar.

The final slide’s message was “Lets [snake emoji],” followed by the reveal that it was Megan holding the snake, along with a zoom in on her impressive diamond link bracelets, what looked like a bespoke pair of custom fangs and, yes, another snake picture.

The comments said it all: “m idk idk idk it’s a single or her costume!!!!,” “wait music or hottieween! I’m fine with either” and “wait music or hottieween! I’m fine with either.” Fans have been patiently awaiting the rapper’s follow-up to her cathartic 2022 album Traumazine.

At press time, however, Megan had not announced any new music, though she has been easing her way back into the game following the end of the trial of Tory Lanez, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in August for shooting Megan in the feet in July 2020. Since then she has released her hit Cardi B collab “Bongos” and the “Out Alpha the Alpha,” the lead single from the A24 move Dicks: The Musical, in which she also co-stars.

And, in keeping with the tenor of the szn, she will also play a sexy hormone monstress in the upcoming seventh season on Netflix’s animated series Big Mouth, which returns on Oct. 20.

See Meg’s posts below.

Offset is gearing up to release his upcoming solo album Set It Off on Friday (Oct. 13). Ahead of its arrival, the rapper sat down for a conversation with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, which saw him talking about his late Migos bandmate Takeoff and how his family helps him through creative roadblocks.
Offset explained that losing Takeoff to a fatal shooting late last year was particularly hard because his spirit was genuinely uplifting.

“Take had that… he just had good character. He just was like, ‘I make music with people that love my music and I love everybody.’ He’s a loving person, man,” he told Lowe. “It was just a tragedy my boy had to go like that, man. But I’m pushing for him too. Legacy, the group thing is it can’t be a group because our main member is missing.”

Takeoff’s spirit lives on through Offset’s music, as he recalls the late rapper cheering him on in his solo endeavors — something that allowed him to push on in recording his new project. “Even on my own journey, I still feel his presence and his energy like, bro, ‘We got to go hard. We got to win. We got to win. This ain’t the end of it. We got to win,’” the “Clout” rapper added. “So that’s another thing that pushed me through is my boy, Take, man. He didn’t care that he didn’t care about the numbers, nothing. He like, ‘Bro, y’all’s s–t hard.’ He’s just very supportive in that. I just keep that in the back of my mind and just keep pushing.”

In addition to making music in honor of Takeoff’s memory, Offset shared that he continues to be inspired by his family, who in his words “kept my head on my shoulders” during the album recording process.

“Them being able to be close to me and to hold me tight because I needed family for a long time, man,” he said, referring to his five children and wife Cardi B. “People think everything is peaches and creams with an artist. You go through mental things, you go through things with your family, you go through confidence things, you go through creative block.”

The 31-year-old revealed that he struggled with making music during the summer months but was able to pull himself back together because one of his sons insisted on hearing new material. “It was like they giving me more life when I felt like I was draining … hearing my boys be like, ‘Dad, man, we want to hear your new music. When your new album going to drop? You need to come on.’ It just sparked the juice,” Offset recalled. “‘OK, let’s get back into the grind mode. Let’s get back into it.’”

Set It Off marks Offset’s second solo album; his first, Father of 4, peaked at No. 4 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart.