With her debut, Megan has given us the album we were all waiting for… and the album we were expecting.

On her full-length debut album, Megan Thee Stallion doesn’t shy away from the same sort of highly explicit material that characterized her feature in this summer’s talk of the town: Cardi B’s ”WAP.” Not a single of the seventeen tracks on Good News has escaped Spotify’s explicit rating, suggesting even more of that raw, unfiltered hip hop that made Megan a front figure of the female rap scene in a very short time.

Having already released three EPs and one mixtape as well as scoring two #1 singles, it almost feels a bit unfair to consider this a debut album, and Megan definitely has the attitude and bravery of an artist at the peak of her career. For the inexperienced, for the conservative, for Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler (who recently dismissed ”WAP” as ”disgusting”), or simply for the shy listener, 49 minutes of unstoppably naugty word-play and Megan’s hilarious signature ”wääääh”’s might be a bit much to take in, and if it is, then you’re probably just not quite ready for Good News.

But if you are, it is likely that you will find your new favorite Megan tune among these compact and highly effective hip-hop songs. I only had to skip twice while listening: the bland ”Intercourse” and the remix of her hit ”Savage,” a song that I have heard so many times on Tik-Tok by now that not even a Beyoncé feature could save it. Megan is at her best when she’s taking the scene alone. On ”Circles,” she’s delivering one of her greatest flows so far, and the bluesy party groove on ”Sugar Baby” will leave you thirsty for more. Other highlights are the three powerful message-hymns ”What’s New,” ”Work That,” and ”Outside,” which all start with the same spoken intro, indicating that something great is about to appear. These songs include so many memorable and empowering lines that I cannot possibly fit them all here, but in general they tell you to:

1. Do your own thing.
2. Ignore your haters.
3. If you don’t love yourself, take a look in the mirror. You’re beautiful.

It might sound unworldly in some ears, but after listening to the lyrics to these songs, there’s no doubt that Megan is a big inspiration to young girls. Call her vulgar, call her distasteful, but she ain’t doing nothin’ she don’t wanna do. That’s respect. 

So, is Good News really all that good news? Unfortunately, it isn’t. Like so many similar albums, it suffers from the “inferior-featuring artists-syndrome.” In Megan, we finally have a female rapper as explicit as her male counterparts, but kicking their asses with more powerful messages and with a hardcore attitude. Considering this, why do we have to withstand listening to inferior artists such as Lil Durk and Young Thug, especially since they contribute nothing in particular? Good News could have been a record of unrestrained feminist hip-hop anthems, but it ultimately turns into a commercial infilration of artists that are just happy to be on a highly anticipated Megan Thee Stallion album. Even if parts of this album is excellent, it leaves me with a somewhat bitter aftertaste. She sure can rap, but where is the art?