Cardi B - WAP (feat. Megan Thee Stallion) | 

Chart Mondays are back and we have a brand new number one! I knew Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion was going to reach the top spot here in the UK at some point. Since "WAP" was released, the song and video have gone viral and so it's no surprise that it's reigning at the top of the official UK singles chart. Rap and hip-hop aren't really my thing, but I can appreciate its lyrics at times and there are a few artists in the genre that I actually like and support. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion come in hard for this track and I have to applaud them for how they've made their mark in what is considered to be a male-dominated genre. "WAP" samples Frank Ski's 1993 song "Whores In The House" and contains many sexual innuendos about how they wish to be pleased by men - which makes a change since for decades we've heard male rappers and hip-hop stars sing about women pleasing them, and it's great that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion has flipped the script with this release. To see such a song go viral and chart highly all around the world is a massive feat and has to be applauded.

The accompanying music video, directed by the one and only Colin Tilley, is flat-out incredible. There's so much power in every single scene and it's such a clever concept considering the lyrics. If this was a male song about women pleasing men, you can imagine the visuals - because we've seen it a hundred times before - and so creating a reversal music video would've been the most typical music video and yet it wouldn't have quite the effect (plus we've seen such music videos from other female artists in the past); instead, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion bring confidence, sass, and self-awareness of their bodies and their needs. They bat out the choreography with no problems and continue to be sexy, sultry, and sensual. There's a scene where Kylie Jenner walks down the corridor, and it's such a moment because there's so much self-empowerment in the way she walks that captures all our attention. Normani, Rosalía, Mulatto, Rubi Rose, and Sukihana, all make appearances, mainly as dance scenes, showing their fierceness and self-empowerment.

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion make an incredible and unforgettable statement with this music video and those who criticise the music video for its sexually explicit content need to look at themselves and complain about the hundreds of much-worse music videos by male artists that go back decades upon decades. This is on-point from start to finish and sexually-charged in a good way; it makes quite the statement, and we need more female empowerment in this world, for sure!

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