Such interpretations aren’t defenses, though. Another take says that Drake was referring to a model known as Elke the Stallion. Lil Yachty, a collaborator on some of the album, has said the line is “not about Megan,” but rather about cosmetic injections. In the past few days, his listeners have sown doubt about what he’s really saying. And Drake’s “Circo Loco” lyric aligns him with one camp-though vaguely enough to give him some cover from blowback. What’s clear is that having a strong opinion against Megan is, in many cases, more of a tribal position than a logical one, with gendered overtones. Read: Megan Thee Stallion’s sweet defiance Rappers including 50 Cent and Boosie BadAzz have fixated on Megan’s denial of a sexual relationship with Lanez, as if it’s obvious that they did sleep together, as if it would matter if they had, as if the case is comprehensible only if it fulfills stereotypes about female jealousy and vindictiveness. Others circulate debunked info (Lanez has amplified misinformation, violating a judge’s order about discussing the case). Some skeptics raise pseudo-rational disputes with her timeline (Megan recovered from her injuries quickly-too quickly?). Lanez’s defenders suspect that Megan has spun a hoax, though if you browse their online commentary, you don’t find a clear and unanimous basis for that suspicion. To Megan and her supporters, the shooting demonstrates the disrespect and danger Black women routinely face. Proving guilt or innocence is tricky, but opinions around the case have become bizarrely polarized. Prosecutors have charged him with shooting her, and the court case is ongoing. Since then, the public has seen medical records documenting bullet fragments in her feet, a text-message apology from Lanez to Megan (for an unspecified offense) sent shortly after the alleged attack, and a text from a friend who was in the car, telling a bodyguard that “Tory shot Meg.” In song lyrics and on social media, Lanez has disputed Megan’s account, though without clearly providing his own version of events. In August 2020, she said that, a month earlier, Lanez had fired at her after she’d gotten out of a car in which she, Lanez, and two others had been arguing. Megan Thee Stallion’s shooting has been treated as a spectacle from the start.
Read: Pusha T, Drake, and the limits of rap beef Shortly after the album dropped, she tweeted her anger, writing, “Stop using my shooting for clout.” Hip-hop now has a new beef, and it hints at the market value of misogyny.
In the court of public opinion and in an ongoing criminal trial, Lanez has pleaded innocent, and the “Circo Loco” line would seem to signal Drake’s agreement that Megan is being dishonest. On the new song “Circo Loco,” he raps this: “This bitch lie ’bout gettin’ shots, but she still a stallion.” The line was widely interpreted as dissing Megan Thee Stallion, the 27-year-old Houston emcee who accused another rapper, Tory Lanez, of shooting her feet in 2020. How ironic that Her Loss, released last Friday, has drawn attention largely for Drake disrespecting a woman.
Throughout, in his typical manner, he fixates on the power women hold over him sexually-and the power he can hold over them financially. On another, he says he’d vote for a female president (the porn star Teanna Trump). On one song, Drake shouts out abortion rights. But then again, Her Loss-Drake’s new, joint album with the Atlanta rapper 21 Savage-is a queasy ode to femininity, from its title to its cover art.
The joke is, of course, that men who treat women as hoes aren’t feminist. “I blow a half a million on you hoes, I’m a feminist,” Drake raps in a lyric that, like so much of his recent output, is perched between humor and brand management, shock and forgettability, engagement and apathy.
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