Ever since she stepped on the scene in 2016, Megan Thee Stallion has been at the height of her game. But no star is ever a star solely because of their own work, and Megan Thee Stallion’s creative director team deserves their flowers too.

Check the throwback pics I been that bitch!

Megan Thee Stallion on “Girls in the Hood”

Whether it be with a new single, video, or bikini flick, Megan has been providing her hotties with the finest for years now. But 2020 still felt like her biggest rise yet.

Hot Girl Meg has been building her empire with the help of a few key creatives. Below we take a look back at the Houston rappers’ most iconic appearances and the visionaries that brought them to life. 

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DJ Chose

It’s hard to imagine the savage rapper as a college student, but Megan first garnered attention as the baddie dominating cyphers around campus at Texas Southern University.

She first dropped “Stalli Freestyle” when her Instagram freestyle videos began to circulate.

The video was shot and produced by PCrisco and DJ Chose in 2017. It features Meg delivering her bars on what appears to be an empty suburban street.

DJ Chose was a major part of Megan Thee Stallion’s early days, having known her as a child when she would come into the studio with her mom, rapper Holly Wood.

In an interview for All Hip-Hop, Chose reminisces: “Megan was family… I knew she was a star, that’s why I hopped on it so early.” 

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DJ Chose was Megan Thee Stallion’s first director

Meg’s “Stalli Freestyle” quickly went viral, and the video marked her first professional video debut.

DJ Chose was Megan Thee Stallion’s first official director. He directed most of her early content and helped get her on the industry’s radar.

But in the years before, she had signed to 1501 Certified Entertainment, and made the Tina Snow album that would change her life.

Young Megan has not only always known what she was about, but who to be around. Appearing in yellow camo pants and a black mesh top, Megan was as captivating then as she is now.

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Munachi Osegbu

Munachi Osegbu is another creative genius, and once Megan’s favorite director, responsible for the way our hot girl coach blew up after that.

Osegbu dropped his debut video for “Big Ole Freak” as Megan entered Billboard Top 100 for the first time, marking a career-defining moment for both of them.

“Big Ole Freak” was the first of many collaborations to come between Megan and the creative director.

The video presents Megan and her hotties bouncing around a bubble bath in red latex or swinging from a hula-hoop in a graphic tee and strappy heels.

Thus, Osegbu was the first to capture what would become the rapper’s range of latex lingerie looks and bold aesthetic signature. 

The Nigerian-born director followed up with Megan’s “Realer” video, inspired by afrofuturism and blaxploitation films.

Osegbu’s work reclaims the aesthetics of movies centered around Black criminals in Harlem, and transcends the politically fraught moment of the present. 

Afrofuturism is… a reconceptualization of the past, present, and future for the African diaspora.

Munachi Osegbu for Surface Magazine, 2019

The 24 year-old videographers’ video for “Hot Girl Summer” won the Viewer’s Choice Award at the 2020 BET Awards.

He has since gone on to shoot for the likes of Nike, Rolling Stone, and Paper Magazine, and has shot for other artists like Saweetie and Diplo.

Osegbu’s love for fashion and bold color sets him apart from videographers that have tried similar styles. The hyper-saturated visuals give his videos a vitality that puts viewers in a trance, offering us a chance to become fully immersed in Meg’s Hot Girl reality.

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Colin Tilley

Megan’s most recent hits have cemented her as a legend in the rap game, but also a music video phenomenon. Behind all of Megan Thee Stallion’s latest tantalizing, highly choreographed videos is director Colin Tilley.

Tilley’s collaborations with Megan has taken what has always been her bold, colourful image to the next level. In “Wap,” or “Cry Baby,” or “Body,” every part of the screen scales in and out in technicolor as the rapper dances center stage.

The videographer amplified Megan’s visions by incorporating surreal distortions, CGI work, and on some occasions even a live snake. All of the costumes, nails, and hair is exaggerated ten fold to suit the wonderland-esque quality of Tilley’s work, complete with six back up dancers.

Colin Tilley’s emphasis on the extensive choreography has also made Megan a TikTok trendsetter which has taken her online presence and career to another level. 

At this point, I’ve worked with every artist out there and now it’s just about how a song will make me feel and challenge me. When you’re in the creative field like we are, what drives us more than anything? And that’s a new challenge.

Colin Tilley for Billboard, 2020

As the CEO and owner of Boy in the Castle Productions, Colin has worked with everyone from Kendrick Lamar to Fergie to Missy Elliott.

And thus, he has managed to create videos that are larger than life every time. They are thematically center around distortions of reality, both of which have earned him widespread recognition in the industry.

With several accolades under his belt, including a Grammy nomination for Best Direction and countless other nominations, Tilley shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.

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DJ Chose, Osegbu, and Tilley are creative directors changing the content game

Megan Thee Stallion’s skyrocketing fame can be chalked up to her immense talent. But of course, creative direction takes more than that.

DJ Chose, Munachi Osegbu, and Colin Tilley are at the top of their games too. And they have directly helped Meg’s star rise.

They are helpful and dedicated creatives, who deserve our attention too.

Music videos are not only a part of the way we generally consume music these days but some of the most interesting and critical work is now being created through this medium.

Its value lies in being an avenue for directors to explore creatively, experiment, and formulate a level of authorship that may not come as easily in the world of narrative film or television.

Plus, music videos offer the opportunity to employ a non-linear form of storytelling that isn’t confined to a three-act structure, nor follows the cinematic convention of syncing sound seamlessly to an image in order to keep audiences hypnotized by what’s on screen.

There can be ruptures, breaks, visual contradictions, and juxtapositions, all of which creates an array of possibilities for interpretation and ultimately make for super engaging content. Here’s a list of the hottest directors right now whose music videos marry together stunning visuals with world-transcending sounds.

Ricky Saiz

 

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Happy Holidays ❤️

A post shared by @ rickysaiz on Nov 24, 2016 at 10:50am PST

Saiz’s collaboration with The Carters to direct the music video for their track “Apeshit,” may come as a surprise given Saiz is somewhat of a mystery and yet, ended up teaming with the ultimate celebrity power couple. The end result, however, is a powerful piece that affirms blackness’ place in a historically white space. But I guess we wouldn’t expect anything less than Black excellence from The Carters.

When viewers are introduced to The Carters in the video, their gaze directly meets ours as they stand tall in front of the most famous, valued, and prized artwork in the world;  Leonardo DaVinci’s, Mona Lisa.

It’s clear that Saiz is incredibly intentional and precise in his framing. The positioning of both Jay-Z and Beyonce in front of the infamous artwork is emblematic of the way that their black bodies throughout the video physically intervene in a space dedicated to preserving and heralding Western art and culture.

With the whole of the Louvre at their disposal, the actual museums’ space and the art that resides in it, are continually employed throughout the video. There are static shots of paintings, slowly spinning and tilted shots of the museums’ ornate architecture, as well as shots in which the camera almost floats through the vast space, rendering a kind of infinite or timeless quality.

Wide shots of Beyonce standing in front of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, in addition to static close-ups of women’s faces in the paintings are all intercut with shots of Beyonce and her backup dancers, all of whom are women of color.

The interplay between these shots draws attention to how ideas of beauty and femininity are solidified in European art and have been subsequently perpetuated throughout history to cement white womanhood as the beauty ideal.

Plus, an amazing juxtaposing shot of Beyonce and her dancers in front of the painting depicting the crowning of Napoleon’s wife Josephine throws into question who is the real Queen in this shot. Put simply, the composition depicts a black woman superseding a European monarch.

We also see enormous paintings of military victories – images that have been romanticized by the art world to be viewed as symbols of high art, instead of being interpreting as violent images of white male domination, conquest, and expansion.

With France being the birthplace of Enlightenment thinking, the philosophy that validated the project of global imperialism, The Carters’ embodied critique puts into question the nation’s motto of liberty, equality, and fraternity (a motto also absorbed by the West today) that these paintings ultimately signify.

In this way, the Carters’ physical presence in this site is a scathing critique of Western art and cultures’ historical tradition of representing blackness and ‘the East,’ as ‘primitive’ or ‘backward’, and the music video explicitly points to this historical space as responsible for the continuation of such racist mythology. These are just a few of the reasons people should really still be going apeshit over this music video!

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Nadia Lee Cohen

 

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matching for @interviewmag wearing @versace styled by @melzy917 photo by @charliedenis

A post shared by nadia lee cohen (@nadialeelee) on Sep 16, 2018 at 1:37pm PDT

With Nadia Lee Cohen’s videos lending the feeling of viewers being transported into a bizarre surrealist dream, the artist certainly knows how to make a statement.

Her vibrant visuals are steeped in color and produce a level of eccentricity that just exudes out of the screen. Using her artistic license to the upmost degree, Cohen actually seems to take pleasure in making viewers uncomfortable and achieves this primarily through the overtly sexual tone that runs throughout her videos and photography.

Indeed, the absurdity that characterizes the British artists’ work produces a visceral effect for beholders and suggests that Cohen likes pushing boundaries and is interested in how audiences engage with her art.

The music video Gilligan for D.R.A.M. ft A$AP Rocky and Juicy J unveils Cohen’s interest in suburban settings and the decades of the 60s and 70s as a source of stylistic inspiration. Interestingly, the white women in the video resemble caricatures. This representational approach is subversive given that black women’s identities have historically been represented in such a derogatory two-dimensional way.

Her thematic attention to ideas of beauty, femininity, race, consumerism is amplified and exaggerated in her jarring colorful aesthetic. Cohen’s engagement with such themes inevitably brings into question ideas about the representation of women in the media, the implications of such representations, and the male gaze. It is in these ways that there is definitely a critical quality to Cohen’s work.

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Karena Evans

 

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like a lady from time to time (thx to @jessnmori) – from last weekend at @tiff_net

A post shared by Karena Evans (@karenaevans) on Sep 14, 2018 at 1:03pm PDT

Moving through the ranks as an intern for big-name music video director, Director X at his production company Popp Rok, Karena Evans has recently made waves in the industry by landing the opportunity to direct Drake’s music videos for the tracks “God’s Plan” and “Nice For What.”

Captivated by the electric energy and face-paced environment of the world of music video production, the 22-year-old ended up dropping out of film school to take a chance and pursue her career at Popp Rok.

Turns out, her hard work and dedication for the production company paid off as Evans was gifted with the dream to work with Drake and apply her directorial skills to making the videos for two of the artists’ songs on his latest album, Scorpion.

In “God’s Plan,” viewers are set up with the preface of Drake having a million dollar budget to shoot the music video. Evans, however, ends up following the rap star around the city of Miami and we watch as Drake redistributes the money for the video shoot instead to those in need.

The video shows Drake dishing out bundles of cash to city-dwellers, paying for everyone’s’ goods in a grocery store and offering a fifty thousand dollar college scholarship to a young African-American woman.

All of the footage is juxtaposed with shots of Drake rapping in a clothing floor of a high-end mall and in doing so, exposes the economic disparity between life on the street and the high life and riches that Miami is also known for.

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Hiro Murai

 

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#emmys

A post shared by Hiro Murai (@muraihiro) on Sep 18, 2018 at 12:10am PDT

For a music video that is deeply embedded in exploring what it means to be black in America, it may come as a surprise that the mind behind the provocative visuals for Childish Gambino’s music video “This is America,” is a Japanese-American director, Hiro Murai.  Yet, Murai made an explosive statement on race in America through the music video.

There are so many things that keep audiences’ eyes glued to what is happening on screen. Viewers are taken on a journey, following the movements of Glover and each interaction he makes with the extras in the video. with the extras. But it is a highly choreographed piece. There are no cuts in the editing.

Instead, the camera floats through the abandoned warehouse. And it is no accident that Murai chose this as the site to shoot the video, as it visually references the fall of industry in the U.S. under our current iteration of global capitalism and essentially an abandoned warehouse that could easily be found in any city across the nation.

While the visuals and lyrics are disturbing, the song is alarmingly so consumable. And that is what Gambino is getting at through this video. He is presenting the way in which black suffering is normalized and highlights the exploitation of black cultural production at the expense of white leisure and entertainment.

His minstrel-like smiles, body movement, and topless dancing take primary focus despite the chaos and violence that explodes behind him. And that is one of the devastating messages Gambino is conveying through this video.

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Colin Tilley

 

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working on my craft 2day and 4ever #boyinthecastle I want the action!

A post shared by Colin Tilley (@colinseyes) on Sep 27, 2018 at 11:21am PDT

Hailing from Berkley, California, Colin Tilley is directing some of the most influential and biggest artists of the industry right now.

Tilley has been able to collaborate with some pretty damn famous names; from RiRi, Kendrick Lamar, Selena Gomez, DJ Khaled & Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, DJ Snake, and Nicki Minaj to name a few. To add, his most recent work includes directing a video for the collaboration between the two major labels, Balmain and L’Oréal.

His music video for Kendrick Lamar’s track “Alright,” I would argue is some of the best cinematic work you will see. Shot in black and white, the visuals are highly saturated and contrasted. The video depicts black bodies becoming sonically animated and suspend in the air as the beats, kicks, low ends and lyrics dominate the soundscape.

We continually see Kendrick floating and moving through urban space, as life plows on below him, the music in the video takes on an emancipatory quality as we observe Kendrick’s body escaping the violence, and specifically, the brutal policing and surveilling of black bodies under him — a reality that characterizes this bleak urban space. Tilley masterfully captures artists in their element.