As the name of Megan Thee Stallion’s latest track suggests — “Girls In The Hood” — the 25-year-old rapper sampled “Boyz-n-the-Hood,” the debut single from the late Eazy-E. The song’s arrival on June 26, however, was preceded by drama between the N.W.A. leader’s daughters Ebie Wright, 28, and ReeMarkable (Henree Wright), 27. The back-and-forth began when ReeMarkable took to Instagram to reveal why she was “bothered” that Megan was given the green light to rap over her father’s legendary beat.
First off, ReeMarkable clarified that “as long as y’all paying homage to my father, I f–k with that a 100 percent.” However, what she’s not cool with is “the people in the background that press the ‘ok’ button” for artists to sample her father’s music. “He’s got kids that you won’t write s–t off for…I’ve got siblings that want to do so much in the likeness of my father, but we can’t, unless we want to get some papers thrown on our table. Cease and desist. Someone tell me how we stop that. Because we want our daddy legacy.”
This prompted ReeMarkable’s half-sister, Ebie, to clap back on Instagram. “That girl that’s speaking out on it, Ree? You guys have got to stop getting me confused with this girl. I don’t know her, my father didn’t know her,” Ebie claimed of Eazy-E, who passed away in 1995 (when both Ebie and ReeMarkable were young children).
Ebie continued, “And it’s really strange to me that every single time something that has to do with my dad comes up, she’s the first one running to the Internet to speak up as if she’s the spokesperson for my father or my family. It’s really, really f–king weird…the only person who has been fighting, and is still fighting to this day for my father’s estate and to make things right, is me. Literally me and my mother, Tracy Jernagin.” With that said, Ebie showed her love for Megan’s new single: “I love it. I feel like my father hasn’t gotten his proper respect…I love anytime, anybody makes him even more relevant.” The shade confused ReeMarkable, who said in another Instagram video, “I’m your sister. We ain’t family, we blood. That’s what it is. But I’ll always be your sister baby girl…Stop with the jealous s–t.”
It’s been a year since Megan and her fans set the Internet ablaze with the term, “Hot Girl Summer.” It’s a riff on one of Meg’s trademark boasts, of how she’s always doing “real hot girl sh-t.” This phrase was captured on her track, “Real Sh-t,” off of her 2019 mixtape, Fever. Around the time of its release, Megan’s fans coined the phrase – with Twitter user @Sweetliketeaaa being one of the first, notes Vox – and she embraced it. By the time of the 2019 BET Awards, Meg was all about that “hot girl summer.”
“Being a Hot Girl is about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident, living YOUR truth, being the life of the party, etc.,” she tweeted in mid-June. She later expounded on the concept while speaking to The Root at the 2019 BET Awards. “It’s just basically about women — and men — just being unapologetically them, just having a good-ass time,” she said, “hyping up your friends, doing you, not giving a damn about what nobody got to say about it. You definitely have to be a person that can be the life of the party, and, y’ know, just a bad bitch.”
The phrase became the meme of the season, and Megan would capitalize by releasing the official “Hot Girl Summer” song on Aug. 9, 2019. Featuring a verse by Nicki Minaj and a hook sung by Ty Dolla $ign, the song debuted and peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. It would be Megan’s highest-peaking song until the previously mentioned Bey-led “Savage” remix found its way to the No. 1 position at the end of May this year.
“Savage,” much like “Hot Girl Summer,” found viral success due to Megan Thee Stallion’s fans – specifically, Keara Wilson, the creator of the #SavageChallenge. The TikTok star created choreography to Megan’s song, and literally, everyone got in on the action. Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Nikki Bella, Keke Palmer, Marsai Martin, Normani, Ryan Destiny, Kendall Jenner, Mason Disick, Hailey Baldwin (with a surprise cameo from Justin Bieber), and Janet Jackson were just some of the stars joining in. Now, will there be a follow-up #GirlsInTheHoodChallenge?