Megan Thee Stallion’s remix to her breakout hit, “Savage,” hit the music world like a brick when it dropped. Megan, who had been garnering a substantial amount of attention since her “Hot Girl Summer” in 2019, was slowly climbing the ranks to true rap stardom. But this remix officially cemented her place.
Megan received the green light from the one and only, Beyonce Knowles-Carter, who was featured throughout the song. While the song was always going to receive an absurd amount of praise and attention due to the names attached, it can be argued that it truly did deserve all of its acclaims. “Savage Remix (ft. Beyoncé)” showed the world what a real rap remix looks like. The original version of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage,” reached unprecedented success due to a dance made on TikTok. The dance became wildly popular and later reached the mainstream after celebrities created the “Savage” challenge. However, it was never expected that someone with the pull of Beyoncé would ever become a part of the equation.
The term “remix” has become diluted as of late, especially after a few lackluster remixes have received mainstream success. Many artists have concluded remixes to mean that a song has a verse from a rapper or a bass drop after the chorus. However, there is rarely any change to the original song or its verses, and most recent remixes seem like the artist had no attachment to it.
While the remix has existed for the better part of a century, most people credit the modern remix to P. Diddy. He has been credited with perfecting the sample in rap songs, and also creating praise for his ability to bring artists from different genres together, such as his own collaboration with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. He produced one of the most acclaimed remixes of all time, Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy (ft. Ol’ Dirty Bastard).” The “Fantasy” remix brought together the celestial sounds of Carey’s voice and coupled it with the hyper-aggressive raps of O.D.B, and it was sensational.
While the mainstream music world has seemingly stopped producing transformative remixes, the world of hyper pop and EDM has more than made up for it. A.G. Cook, the executive producer of Charli XCX’s critically acclaimed “Charli,” has pumped out well-received remixes for multiple artists, such as 100 Gecs and Caroline Polachek. The second half of artist Grimes’s 2020 album “Miss Anthropocene” features transformative remixes of a few of the songs released on the album. However, this world of remixes mostly stays in the background.
What makes the remix of “Savage” so special is the work you can tell Megan Thee Stallion put into it. She rewrites all of her verses and adds new ad-libs throughout the song. It never strays from its original concept but is still able to be a completely new song. Beyoncé’s effort is also impressive and is more of a compliment to Megan than the song itself. When Beyoncé is present, she sings her “okay” throughout the song, and raps more verses than we’ve heard from her in the last year.
It truly cements Megan as the artist she has been proving herself to be since she came onto the music scene. The remix is reminiscent of what a remix was meant to be all along. Two dynamically different voices coming together for one song. Two artists in a true collaboration, not just two artists sending each other vocal samples.
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