Megan Thee Stallion politely requested that her Hotties “stop trying” to guess what her next single, “Cobra,” would sound like because “y’all are not gonna be able to guess.” Within the same post, Meg also shared, “I spilled my guts on this song, I helped produce this song, I’m just so proud of it.” When “Cobra” arrived this morning, November 3, Hotties no longer had to guess about the song’s sonic contents, but now, they’ve shifted into hypothesizing who “Cobra” is about.
In the accompanying “Cobra” video, Megan Thee Stallion emerges from inside of a cobra after saying, “Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.” Once she’s standing on her own two feet, she shreds everyone who has done her wrong. If you’ve been paying attention over the last three-ish years, that’s a lengthy list.
Who Is “Cobra” About?
Disclaimer: We don’t know. We can’t know unless Megan Thee Stallion explicitly says whom “Cobra” is based upon. She’s endured an overwhelming amount of people projecting opinions onto her, especially after Tory Lanez was alleged to have shot her in her feet in July 2020.
That said, it would appear that the majority of “Cobra” finds Meg venting about how she navigated Lanez’s abuse toward her — evidenced by brave and vulnerable bars like “Breakin’ down, and I had the whole world watchin’ / But the worst part is really who watched me / Every night I cried, I almost died / And nobody close tried to stop it” or “Yes, I’m very depressed / How can somebody so blessed wanna slit they wrist?”
For reference, Meg testified during Lanez’s trial, in part, “I can’t even be happy. I can’t hold conversations with people for a long time. I don’t feel like I want to be on this earth. I wish he would have just shot and killed me, if I knew I would have to go through this torture” (as NPR relayed last December).
Lanez was found guilty on three felony counts (assault with a semiautomatic handgun, carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and discharging a firearm with gross negligence) and is serving a 10-year prison sentence.
Additionally, there’s this: “Damn, I got problems / Never thought a b*tch like me would ever hit rock bottom / Man, I miss my parents, way too anxious, always cancel my plans / Pulled up, caught him cheatin’, gettin’ his d*ck sucked in the same spot I’m sleepin’.” People were quick to assume that those bars were reserved for her ex, Pardison “Pardi” Fontaine.
Megan Thee Stallion is excited to be independently releasing “Cobra” (and her presumed forthcoming album — her first since August 2022’s Traumazine) after she and her former label, 1501 Certified Entertainment, “mutually reached a confidential settlement to resolve their legal differences” (as reported by Billboard). Read Uproxx’s timeline of the lawsuit here.
Watch the “Cobra” video above.