Five years after “Hot Girl Summer,” the Houston rapper is processing success, strife, and celebrity.

As a New Year’s resolution and in an attempt to embrace being a cowgirl, I decided to learn to two-step. Donning my black Ariats, I jumped into studio classes and eventually tested what I learned on weekly visits to Dallas–Fort Worth’s Western dance clubs, such as Guitars and Cadillacs and Cowboys Red River. The deejays at these spots play the usual bro-country and two-steppin’ songs but also sprinkle in a few line dances set to pop. And for anyone willing to mix their boot-scooting with smooth West Coast swing, the venues throw in a hip-hop song or two. I picked up this formula pretty quickly. Line dances to “Shivers” by Ed Sheeran or “Wobble” by V.I.C. transition easily into the safety of a Bruno Mars or Usher song. But one night, after I figured out the footwork to “Lil Bit,” the deejay added something new to the mix: “And if the beat live, you know LilJu made it.”

“Wait, is he playing ‘Body’ right now?” I yelled to my dance partner, instantly recognizing the start of the Megan Thee Stallion song by the callout to her producer. Without skipping a beat, we joined the Cowtown crowd doing its best to weave West Coast swing moves into the Houston rapper’s boastful track.

Megan Thee Stallion galloped into mainstream popularity five years ago with “Hot Girl Summer” in 2019. “Being a Hot Girl is about being unapologetically YOU,” she wrote on Twitter that July. Her message fit perfectly alongside the empowerment that followed the reckoning of #MeToo a few years prior and the girlboss era that was in full throttle.

With hits like “Thot S—,” “Savage,” and “WAP,” she rose as a rapper who—often through alter egos such as Tina Snow, Hot Girl Meg, and Suga—could be both powerful and playful. My friends and I bonded over tackling (poorly) the “WAP” choreography in our DIY tie-dyed outfits during the COVID pandemic. The headlines were bleak, and Megan brought light to a dark time with her debut album, Good News. Her “Savage Remix” with fellow Houstonite Beyoncé won her two Grammys in 2021.

However, the happy-go-lucky persona has major disadvantages: any attempt at depth is downplayed. Megan appeared aware of that risk early on. “When I talk, I have to mean what I say and say what I mean,” she said in the summer of 2019. “I don’t want to use a squeaky voice, because I need you to know I’m being deadass serious.” It wasn’t until a year later that she’d understand just how loud her voice needed to get for people to take her seriously.

After leaving a party at Kylie Jenner’s house in July 2020, Megan was riding in a car with a friend and fellow rapper, Tory Lanez, and his bodyguard. An argument broke out between Megan and Lanez. It got so heated that Megan asked to be let out of the car. Lanez shot her in the foot when she left the vehicle. When police came, Megan told them she had stepped on glass. The shooting occurred less than two months after George Floyd’s death and four months after Breonna Taylor’s. Knowing tensions were high, Megan stayed silent, she later said, because she feared her own situation would escalate to something that would lead her into even more danger.

When she finally revealed online that she had been shot, Megan wasn’t greeted with empathy. She became the center of memes and jokes from other celebrities and the victim of social media vitriol. Her attacker released an entire album aimed at discrediting her.

Megan did what famous women are often pressured to do—make lemonade out of traumatic lemons. She capitalized on how the shooting was more than just a singular situation. She demanded better treatment for Black women. She rapped about what happened in a way that painted her as a resilient survivor rather than a victim struggling to process her pain. The effort was, in some ways, disjointed. In Traumazine, her last album release, in 2022, Megan made lyrical attempts at vulnerability and social change but offset them with flippant, playful beats.

At the same time that a criminal trial was playing out over the shooting, Megan was also embroiled in a fight with her label, 1501 Certified Entertainment. In her suit, Megan claimed the label took advantage of her as an emerging artist and failed to pay enough royalties. Last year she finally got the justice she hoped for. In August, Lanez, who was convicted of shooting her, was sentenced to ten years in prison. Two months later, she and 1501 reached a settlement and parted ways. Earlier this year, Megan signed a distribution deal with Warner Music Group that allows her to release music through her own label, Hot Girl Productions. Megan, her first album as an independent artist, will be out Friday.

The album serves as a well-needed reset for the 29-year-old, who’s currently on tour for the summer. In three serpent-themed singles released so far, Megan lashes out at everyone who’s come for her over the last couple years. “I’m finna get this s— off my chest and lay it to rest. Let’s go,” she spits a capella in “Hiss” before the beat kicks in. She stays in attack mode as she slithers into “Boa”: “They takin’ shots, I’m takin’ spots / I see the shade, then they get blocked . . . I know I’m different, I’m one of a kind / I took off on bitches and left ’em behind.” Sharp words and anger are expected, but Megan appears to really commit to the vulnerability this time. In “Cobra,” she swaps the carefree beats of the past for an ominous guitar riff on a loop that adds intensity as she raps about the pressure she felt to keep a smile on during an incredibly dark time in her life. “Yes, I’m very depressed / How can somebody so blessed wanna slit they wrist?”

The rap over rock instrumentation in “Cobra” is one of the twists to look for in Megan’s upcoming album. “I don’t want to say I’m tapping into other genres. I’m just tapping into other sounds,” she said in an interview with L’Officiel USA recently. “But it’s still very much Megan Thee Stallion. It won’t feel like I went so left. It’ll feel true to me.”