walking upstream…
Megan Thee Stallion
photo: adweek · cc by 3.0 ↗Megan Thee Stallion
sourcesWikipedia · The FADER — The Age of Thee Stallion (bio, Pimp C idolization, mother's death) · XXL — The Break Presents · Rolling Stone — How Megan Thee Stallion Earned Her Confidence (Pimp C / "Take It Off") · Rolling Stone — Megan Thee Stallion Talks Special UGK Feature ("Paper Together") · Cheat Sheet — Megan Thee Stallion Says Using 'Who Shot Ya' Sample Was Her Idea · Billboard — Megan Thee Stallion Feels Like She 'Said Enough' on 'Shots Fired' (sample confirmation) · The FADER — The fever pitch of Megan Thee Stallion ("Big Drank" / "Sippin' On Some Syrup" sample)
Megan Jovon Ruth Pete grew up in Dead End, a stretch of Houston's South Park near DJ Screw's Screwed Up Click, tagging along to studio sessions with her mother, the local rapper Holly-Wood. "I was definitely listening to Pimp C, and I was listening to Biggie — those are my favorite rappers, so my mom really put me on a lot of good music," she said in 2017, before her name had left Houston. She kept freestyling through Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern University; viral clips built into 2019's mixtape Fever, which turned her alter ego Tina Snow into a household name. Her mother died of a brain tumor days after Fever's cover story ran; Megan kept working. After Tory Lanez shot her in the foot in 2020, she named him directly on her next album — the same refusal to soften anything that made her a star.
the sound in question
2020
SavageMegan Thee Stallion
walk the tributaries ↓
UGK1990s–2000s · Southern hip hop / Gangsta rap / Dirty rap
Megan's mother started her on Pimp C's records before she can remember, and by her teens she was digging through his catalog on her own. "'Take it Off' made me feel so confident and cool," she told Rolling Stone in 2019. "I was like, 'If a girl was saying this stuff, this will probably go even crazier!'" She built her breakout alter ego, Tina Snow, directly off Pimp C's own alias, Tony Snow. In 2024 the debt came full circle: UGK guested on her own album, Pimp C's verse arriving as a posthumous, previously unreleased feature.
listen: upstream & here
2001
Take It OffUGK
2018
Freak NastyMegan Thee Stallion
listen forCue up UGK's "Take It Off," from 2001's Dirty Money, then Megan's "Freak Nasty" from the 2018 Tina Snow EP. It's the same unhurried, half-spoken Houston drawl she names as her direct model — matter-of-fact bragging about sex that never has to raise its voice to prove a point. Pimp C rides the beat like he's got nowhere to be; Megan's cadence stretches the same way, syllables dragged out rather than rapped, the confidence coming from pace, not volume.
Three 6 Mafia1990s–2000s · Horrorcore / Crunk / Southern hip hop
"I grew up listening to Pimp C, Three 6 Mafia — all the raunchy music," Megan told XXL in 2018, and when her mother balked at how explicit her own lyrics were, Megan had a ready answer: "Mama, I was listening to Three 6 Mafia at 7, what are you saying?" Her 2019 breakout mixtape Fever makes the debt literal: "Big Drank" rebuilds its whole groove around a lift from Three 6 Mafia's own "Sippin' on Some Syrup," syrup-slow bounce and all.
listen: upstream & heresource: Vulture — How Did Megan Thee Stallion Become the Next Hottest Rapper Out of Houston? (Three 6 Mafia testimony) ↗
2000
Sippin' on Some SyrupThree 6 Mafia
2019
Big DrankMegan Thee Stallion
listen forPlay Three 6 Mafia's "Sippin' on Some Syrup" against Megan's "Big Drank" and the lineage isn't subtle — "Big Drank" rebuilds its beat around a lift from the older track, the same murky, half-speed bounce carried straight through. Where the original passes the mic between Three 6 Mafia and guests UGK and Project Pat, Megan raps the same slowed-down, syrup-thick pocket solo, turning a group cut into a one-woman flex.
The Notorious B.I.G.1990s · East Coast hip-hop / Gangsta rap / Hardcore hip-hop
Megan's mother introduced her to Biggie's records as a kid, and his wordplay became a private writing-room test: "The way he puts his words together when I'm writing, I'm thinking, 'Would Biggie think this is cool?'" she told XXL in 2018. The debt turned pointed in 2020. After Tory Lanez shot her, she opened her album Good News with "Shots Fired," built around the same soul sample Biggie rode for his own diss record "Who Shot Ya?" Asked who chose that instrumental, she didn't blink: "Me. Y'all motherf*ckers so confused. I done told y'all who shot me but y'all motherf*ckers acting like 'we don't know.'"
listen: upstream & here
1994
Who Shot Ya?The Notorious B.I.G.
2020
Shots FiredMegan Thee Stallion
listen forBoth tracks are built from the same 1973 David Porter soul sample — the same somber, stalking piano line that underscores Biggie's spoken threats on "Who Shot Ya?" reappears, slowed to the same menace, as the first thing you hear on Megan's "Shots Fired." She raps over its reputation as much as its sound: where Biggie used the instrumental to intimidate, Megan uses the recognizable sample itself as the accusation, daring listeners to place the song before she names the man.