Megan Thee Stallion Re-Records Anime-Sampled Track Due To Clearance Issues

Before taking the stage for the Dallas stop of her Hot Girl Summer tour on Wednesday (June 26), Megan Thee Stallion hopped on Instagram Live to give fans an update on her upcoming self-titled album. In the broadcast, the Houston native revealed she was forced to re-record a track on MEGAN after an abrupt communication from the team behind an unnamed anime series.

The production company informed the Grammy-winning rapper on Tuesday that in the track, likely “Otaku Hot Girl,” she would not be allowed to make specific references to the series, resulting in her being made to remove all character names from the song or scrap the entire sample.

“Y’all will never believe what the motherf**k just happened to me! I’m not talking bad because I’m very grateful,” shared the “Body” performer. “Y’all know how I told y’all I got an anime sample on my album? This has probably been the hardest song to try to have on my album — but like I said I’m not complaining ’cause I’m grateful.”

The 29-year-old also revealed she will be unable to cosplay as characters from the series for any potential music video for the song. Her MEGAN album is set for release on Friday.

“I really hope y’all think this sh*t sound fire, ’cause I had to jump through eight million hoops to get this sh*t. Once y’all hear the sample, y’all are gonna know why they was giving us a hard time,” she continued.

“This is a very big production company so for them to even say yes — and I be cussing and sh*t — like I said, I’m grateful. I’m not complaining. I really wanted this sample. I really wanted to do it, so I’m doing everything I got to do to keep it. But change the names? Change the names the day before the album out? That was nuts.”

Megan Thee Stallion revealed details on the anticipated album earlier this month, sharing “surprise” to fans on social media. The drop is preceded by the tracks “COBRA” “Hiss,” and “BOA,” all released earlier this year.

“‘Hiss’ was me just getting the things that I had to say off my chest. I’m really not focused on the negativity on my album,” detailed the chart-topping rapper. “I have a lot of different songs on the album because my emotion doesn’t stop at anger. My emotion doesn’t stop at sadness because I did grow and I did start feeling more things. I started feeling really happy. So you have songs on the album that are about the positive times that I’m starting to have. You get a little bit of everything. You get all the emotions in there.”

Cementing her new era, Megan Thee Stallion is set to open the 2024 BET Awards two days after MEGAN is released. Watch her Instagram Live explainer of last-minute changes to the project below, as captured by The Neighborhood Talk.