One image that lives rent free in my head is the famous picture of Megan Thee Stallion wearing a real pumpkin jack-o-lantern on her head, pretending to watch TV in bed. It’s so funny. She reprised the meme again this year on her Instagram, posing poolside with a latte and a giant pumpkin. Megan has had a difficult time over the past three years. Beyond what she endured with Tory Lanez, she is also in a legal battle with her record label–she wants out of her recording contract and they’re not letting her out. She also claims that they owe her a lot in royalties, which I believe. So she’s just bypassing them altogether and self-funding her next album. Studio time is expensive, so this is no mean feat. She talked about it on an Instagram live and is calling the venture: “Hot Girl Productions”. Now I kind of want her to start her own record label called Hot Girl Productions.

Megan is funding the album completely on her own: During an Instagram Live on Thursday (Oct. 12), the rapper revealed that she’s not signed to a label and will be funding her own music projects moving forward, as seen in screen recordings shared by fans on social media. “This part of my album is very much so funded by Megan Thee Stallion because we’re trying to get off… Y’all know what’s the tea. But I have no label right now,” she explained. “We’re doing everything funded straight out of Megan Thee Stallion’s pockets. So, the budget is coming from me. Motherf—ing Hot Girl Productions! The next s— y’all about to see is all straight from Megan Thee Stallion’s brain and Megan Thee Stallion’s wallet. We are in my pockets, hotties, so let’s do our big one.”

Her old record label is playing some underhanded games: The star rapper has been fighting with 1501 for more than two years, claiming the company duped a young artist into signing an “unconscionable” record deal in 2018 that was below industry standards. She filed the current case in February 2022, claiming 1501 had wrongly classified her Something For Thee Hotties less than an “album” — a significant distinction, as she owes a certain number of albums under her deal. Megan Thee Stallion filed a new complaint in August 2022 seeking more than $1 million in damages over claims that 1501 had “systematically failed” to pay enough royalties. 1501 then fired back with new accusations of its own, claiming it’s actually Megan Thee Stallion who owes “millions of dollars.”

[From Billboard]

While I don’t love the circumstances that led to it, I love that Megan is carrying on and refusing to let the jokers at her record label stand in the way. She gets to make her album exactly how she wants, without interference from some bozo executives. Does it mean she’d own her masters, too? I hope so. Artists like Lana Del Rey and Beyonce own their masters (Beyonce owns the masters from her last four albums) and grants exclusive license to record labels. I think that’s the move, so that the artist ultimately owns their work. I don’t know how common of an arrangement that is, but hopefully it’s something Megan can do, so she can protect her work in the future even if she grants license to a different record label. I also feel bad that Megan is getting dragged down by this lawsuit. Unfair record deals are a tale as old as time (see also: Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey!). But she’s a superstar and she deserves a label that will pay her accordingly. If she wanted to be signed to a major label, she would have options.

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