After the success of Megan and Megan: Act II in 2024, it’s no wonder Megan Thee Stallion is angling for another “hot girl summer” with a new single called “Whenever,” slated to be on her next album (which, yes, she’s already teasing). And to help her cultivate her latest era of “hot girl-ness” is both Ms. Cherry and Tim Burton. It’s the former’s 2004 single, “It’s Whateva” (a.k.a. “It’s Whatever”) that Megan Thee Stallion samples from to get her message across (that she can take a bitch anytime, anyplace [to instead borrow from Janet]) and the latter that heightens that message through the “kooky” visuals.
Visuals directed by Zac Dov Wiesel, whose videography just got a mainstream boost as a result of working with Thee Stallion. Clearly wanting to show his worth, Wiesel offers up plenty of Burton-esque “cues,” starting with the waiting room scene (that continues to be interspersed throughout the video). And while it’s not exactly “living dead”-oriented, there’s an undeniable Beetlejuice feel to it. And, considering that Thee Stallion has referred to Burton before in her art and life, it’s not out of the realm that she would do it again. As for the last time she put Burton’s style front and center in a video, it was back when she was in her “Colin Tilley era.” It was Tilley who directed 2020’s Edward Scissorhands-referencing “Don’t Stop” video (and yes, even the more prominent Alice in Wonderland imagery counts as an homage to Burton, since he directed the 2010 version). Three years later, for Halloween ’23, she hosted a Hottieween party with a Burton theme (going hard on the more Burton-esque iteration of Alice in Wonderland for her costume, decorations and various “accomplices” [e.g., the Queen of Hearts]). So, again, it’s not out of left field that the sequence in the waiting room is a nod to Beetlejuice.
This feels especially confirmed when things take an even more surreal turn as some of the people in the waiting room turn into human-sized fish (much to the horror of one of the remaining humans who makes an expression that indicates they don’t just look like fish, but smell like them too). But, taking into account that Megan’s car already crashed through the wall by way of the TV she was being shown on, it’s not the craziest thing. The Wiesel-curated universe we’re in already established the crazy from the outset. And so, it’s not out of the ordinary either that another version of Megan appears on a flatscreen TV in this nondescript waiting room (indeed, it’s very difficult to guess what kind of doctor or “service” these people are there for) in a white bathing suit and flippers, playing up her own fishy aesthetic (undoubtedly a pussy insinuation, because that’s one of the main topics Megan always references). At the same time, there’s also plenty of fish (not in the sea) allusions in the lyrics, including a riff on “one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish” that Megan (like Cardi B once did on “Enough [Miami]”) turns into, “One bitch, two bitch, three bitch, four” (hence, the presence of actual fish in the video). As well as the fishing “metaphor,” “He know that you want him ‘cause you know hе fuckin’ with me/And, bitch, he ain’t takin’ the bait.”
As for the Megan whose car crashed into the office, she still remains in her TV world, dressed like a cowboy—because that’s just the trend now thanks to Beyoncé (even if Megan is a fellow Texas girl who’s dressed in such garb before). And, speaking of “Cowboy Carter,” Thee Stallion takes another cue from her mentor, who once said, “Monday, I’m overrated, Tuesday, on my dick/Flip-flop, flippy, flip-floppin’-ass bitch.” Megan similarly derides her haters (which has become as much of a signature of her lyrics as “real hot girl shit”). So it is that she calls them out with the lines, “Flip-flop hoes actin’ fake, I’ma chip-chop/Say she don’t know me, she fanned out on TikTok” (Instagram will get a mention as well, via the line, “I love when I hear that a bitch don’t like me, stalk my IG”).
In addition to Bey, there’s a certain, of all people, Taylor Swift quality to what Megan raps in the first verse of the track. Channeling Swift on “You Need to Calm Down” when she sings, “You are somebody that I don’t know/But you’re taking shots at me like it’s Patrón/And I’m just like, ‘Damn, it’s 7:00 a.m’/Say it in the street, that’s a knockout/But you say it in a tweet, that’s a copout/And I’m just like, ‘Hey, are you okay?’” For Thee Stallion, that becomes, “Ayy, twenty-four hours in a day and the first thing y’all hoes do is start hatin’, mm (start hatin’)/Couldn’t be me, I’m ‘bout my breesh, in my sleep gettin’ paid.”
Despite her “breezy” attitude toward her detractors, their criticisms still clearly vex her. Which is why she’s willing to take any of the more violent ones on whenever they’re ready (or think they are). So no, this is not a warm and fuzzy track like Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever” (adding sweetly, “We’re meant to be together”). But then, for Megan, it rarely is warm and fuzzy (unless, again, it’s a vag we’re talking about). And over the years it’s become even less so as she’s had to put up more defenses against some of the increasingly persistent haters (Nicki Minaj included). Regardless, she still puts on a brave, I-don’t-give-a-fuck air when she chants, “Whenever, bitch, it’s whatever, ho/It’s whenever, bitch, it’s whatever, ho/It’s whenever, bitch, it’s whatever, ho/We can do it right now, we can take it out the door.”
The Burton aesthetic persists in a fish-eye (yes, again with the fish) lens scene—taking it back to the glory days of rap videos—where Megan rides a white knight. Not as in a man, but as in a chess piece. And, obviously, she would choose the pawn represented by a horse thanks to her own moniker. In the next scene, the universes of the video collide when the Megan inside the flatscreen swims upward and then climbs a swimming pool-style ladder that leads into the desert landscape where Cowboy Megan is having her own fanciful time amidst a backdrop that is highly reminiscent of the one that dominates most of the Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner cartoons (complete with the presence of an anvil). And maybe, to that point, Megan is trying to indicate that she’s the unbothered roadrunner, while her haters are the constantly “hungry” (or, rather, “thirsty”) and out-to-get-her Wile E. Coyote. But, like Wile E., they’ll never succeed.
With production from Bankroll Got It & Shawn “Source” Jarrett (which means Megan doesn’t open the track with her once standard, “And if the beat live, you know Lil Ju made it”), Thee Stallion hits her stride on flexing against everyone she perceives as an undercover fan (because, from the black-and-white worldview of celebrities, there is no such thing as “healthy criticism,” only trolls and stans). This includes the tried-and-true method of lashing out at their looks by rapping, “Do the bitch talkin’ shit look this good?/Nah, I highly doubt it (I highly doubt it).” Even if Nicki, as mentioned, has been one of those shit-talkers.
The universes continue to collapse onto and into each other as the image of a melting clock (this constituting a dash of Burton meets Dalí) leads to a pool cue from another one of Megan’s worlds crashing into the “Beetlejuice office” (where all the destruction seems to happen). Megan, who plays the blasé receptionist à la Miss Argentina, is expectedly unbothered by the “catastrophe.” In fact, the only thing sees fit to do is use the giant pool cue as a twerking prop. Once again showing everyone how unaffected she is by even the most unexpected of “infiltrations.” How she’ll turn lemons into lemonade (an aphorism that has now also become associated with Beyoncé thanks to Lemonade). ‘Cause why be bitter when you can be better?
