Megan Thee Stallion, PinkPantheress, and NIKI: Best New Music

Check out this week’s best new music, featuring Megan Thee Stallion, PinkPantheress, NIKI, and more.

Megan Thee Stallion, Traumazine

Leaks may have unfortunately forced Megan Thee Stallion’s hand with her new record Traumazine, but we’re counting her second full-length album as a blessing regardless. Traumazine has an all-star roster of interesting collaborators from Lucky Daye to Rico Nasty to Latto, but some early favorites are “Her,” a club-ready anthem with a sticky minimalist beat, and “Anxiety,” a clear-eyed assessment of feelings and being alive with Meg’s signature swagger and honesty.

“Well, to me Traumazine basically means like, facing yourself, like what you go through when you finally decide to accept what you’ve been through and come out on the other end as the person that you see yourself becoming, or that you wanna be,” Megan revealed in an interview with SiriusXM. “So I feel like I had to make up a new word for this new experience that I’m going through.”

PinkPantheress, Sam Gellaitry, “Picture in my mind”

We’re already listening to this PinkPantheress collab on repeat. A dancey little electronic beat accompanies the pair’s catchy duet, with its perfect late summer vibe. Gellaitry called PinkPantheress “a visionary” in a press statement — no lies detected.