The past couple of years have been a torrid period for American rapper Megan thee Stallion, with her being a victim and at the centre of a highly-publicised shooting at the hands of convicted hip-hop and R&B star Tory Lanez. In between enduring online abuse from trolls and having to prove her innocence after the ordeal, Megan has finally let her art speak with feral visuals of her macabre single “Cobra”.
“Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past, over and over again,” the “Savage” hit-maker says in the stripped-down beginning of the music video in which only her lips can be seen over a pitch-black background. From the short film’s inception, “Cobra” remains faithful to its title, offering visuals fertile with snake imagery, including a snapshot of the Grammy-winning hip-hop artist with glowing reptilian eyes. The frame transitions to that of a giant snake cleaving thick foliage and moulting before Stallion crawls out of its mouth and begins rapping.
As she breaks down the tragedies that befell her of late, ranging from depression and mental breakdowns to coping with the trauma of family deaths, Megan personalises the controlling metaphor of snakes in the video, playing on the concept of people around her being no different. The cinematic showdown illustrates her at odds with these reptiles, with the 28-year-old musician meeting her animalistic fiends head-on. Poetic justice, considering the parallel between her loneliness in the music video against the snakes and having to face her worst fears in real life with no one by her side.
“Cobra” teems with painterly settings and visual cues that allude to the presence of snakes and the claustrophobia of being stuck with them. From bedroom walls corrugated with scale-like plates to Megan being wrinkled with an extra layer of skin that she casually peels off, the music video portrays Megan as the master of her growth. In charge of her evolution, “Cobra” frames the rapper as someone trying her best to progress beyond her past and shortfalls.
With chilling, primordial visuals, Megan achieves the feat of transposing the objective of the song onto the visuals – the objective being shedding light on the ruthlessness of public opinion and the need to grow beyond the reach of scathing verdicts.
Watch here:
