Megan Thee Stallion performs Friday night at the United Center.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
It’s officially Hot Girl Summer time. Megan Thee Stallion’s first-ever headlining tour — in arenas, no less — is forecast to dominate the next few months as the chart-topping rapper brings her linguistic charades and twerking parade to stadiums across the country. It’s a salacious 90-minute show that will no doubt find its place in headlines, incite scores of her “hotties” to don the part (with a clothing line released on Amazon just in time) and perhaps stir up even more rap battle beef with her current archenemy Nicki Minaj, on her own worldwide tour at the moment.
So why then did things feel rather lukewarm as the Hot Girl Summer Tour made its way to a sold-out United Center on Friday night?
It was the first of two shows in Chicago (the second is Sunday night) and also just the second gig of the tour after Megan kicked things off Tuesday in Minneapolis. Things were a bit rough around the edges from the get-go as the rapper’s mic didn’t kick in until the middle of the first track and the audio frequently provided shrills of feedback or reverb that muffled her delivery.
Beyond technical hiccups, the show was performed entirely to hollow backing tracks without a live band accompaniment, and the production was lacking full creative direction other than some video vignettes and flame towers. Megan picked and chose moments where she gave full vocal performances but, more often than not, it was all about the “body-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody” as she and eight backup dancers shaked, rattled and rolled through each number, leaving barely anything to the imagination. After a while, it felt rote.
Not that the show wasn’t entertaining — Megan’s bravado and confidence shone throughout, and the audience delivered its best imitations from the stands. But at this stage of the game, fans deserve more in a headlining trek.
In 2024, fingers are very much on the pulse of the barb slingers who will edify hip-hop in the decades to come. Sitting very near the top of that list is Megan Thee Stallion, the brazen, emboldened and endlessly explicit Houstonite who has done some of the unthinkable over the course of her still-evolving career, beginning with viral mixtapes in 2016 and 2017 before landing major label deals and topping Billboard charts.
So when she takes stabs in new song “BOA,” with the line, “Doing s- - - for TikTok, yeah, b - - - -, I’m really hip-hop,” there’s truth to that sentiment.
Megan started the show with her latest hit track, “HISS,” her newly coiffed natural hair flowing as she violently unleashed the lyrics. The track hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February, making it the first solo female rap song to debut at the top.
The UC crowd reaction to that track was palpable as it was to her other new offerings, such as the aforementioned “BOA” and “Cobra,” with the latter sampling some of the heavy riffing from her remix with metal act Spiritbox. All are from her upcoming new album slated for release later this year and commanding a reptilian vibe. This was all but confirmed in her set, as Megan donned a snakeskin bodysuit for the first of three costumes and appeared as a Medusa-like figure in some of the video components.
“Thot S - - -,” “Megan's Piano,” “Savage” and “Wanna Be” (featuring a cameo from tour opener GloRilla) were also highlights of the night. As was "Stalli Freestyle,” which Megan declared was due to the “OG hotties making sure it was on the set list.” The fans showered her with gifts like dolls and a poster from the Kansas City Hotties chapter, and a few came up on stage to show off their own body acrobatics, suggesting that Megan’s true hot factor is cultivating a following that is just as open and bold as she is.
In just a few years’ time, the rapper has been named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People; praised for her New York Times op-ed, “Why I Speak Up for Black Women”; was the first Black woman on the cover of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list, in 2022; and, this year, was named the Catalyst for Change Award designee by Planned Parenthood for the rapper’s staunch activism. Not to mention recently orchestrating her own deal to become an independent artist via her newly launched Hot Girl Productions independent music and entertainment firm that allows her creative control while still receiving distribution and marketing from Warner Music Group. So, perhaps it’s just a matter of time before that creative control (and a larger budget) trickles over to her live production — but in the meantime, there’s nothing lacking in the realm of her music.
