Chart Climber: Megan Thee Stallion’s “Big Ole Freak” Took The Long Way To The Top

While artists like Lil Nas X and The Boyboy West Coast have rocketed to fame thanks to meme-driven viral moments, many of today’s rap hits by emerging artists are still built slowly. One such example is “Big Ole Freak,” which first dropped in June 2018 on Megan Thee Stallion’s Tina Snow EP. Earlier this month, “Big Ole Freak” became the Houston rapper’s first Hot 100 entry, culminating nearly a year of relentless promotion.

Based around a prominent sample of R&B trio Immature’s 1992 hit “Is It Love This Time?,” Megan’s track arrived with little fanfare last year. It earned just over 100 total pageviews in both June and July, and didn’t spark a ton of interest until the late fall.

Megan kept pushing not only the record, but herself. Her “Russian Cream” freestyle went viral in November 2018, and coincided with the first significant increase in daily Genius pageviews. “Big Ole Freak” went from 80 pageviews per day on average in October to 150 in November.

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This was the same month that the rapper inked a deal with 300 Entertainment, earning headlines and setting her up for a radio push that would yield dividends a few months later.

“Big Ole Freak” debuted at No. 42 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart the week of January 26, the start of a months-long climb on rap radio. That month, Megan’s single averaged 230 daily pageviews on Genius. She started using social media to provide updates on its radio performance and encourage fans to request it on their local stations.

With awareness growing, Megan dropped the “Big Ole Freak” music video on February 28, and the song earned over 500 single-day pageviews on Genius for the first time:

By March it would climb to even greater heights, as increasing radio play combined with the #BigOleFreakChallenge. DJ Duffy posted the first video on March 9, encouraging participants to copy her challenge by twerking to the song at gas stations:

Megan posted a video of her own later that day, and began sharing her favorite fan videos soon after. By March 12, “Big Ole Freak” would crack 1,000 daily pageviews on Genius for the first time. Google trends also show a rapid increase in search traffic in mid-March, seemingly tied to the challenge.

As social chatter increased, Genius took note, publishing our first news video about the rapper on March 29:

Growing social media buzz combined with airplay gains landed the rapper her first Hot 100 entry on April 20, with “Big Ole Freak” debuting at No. 99. It rose to No. 86 in its second week, and currently sits at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. Its biggest single-day pageview total on Genius came on March 18, when 1,310 people looked up the lyrics. This isn’t a huge number by Genius standards, but the song’s consistency over a long period of time has made it her biggest song on the site thus far.

Megan Thee Stallion has cited rappers like Lil' Kim and Pimp C as some of her inspirations, and “Big Ole Freak” has caught on in large part because of its raunchy lyrics:

Ay, big ole freak, big booty, big ole treat
I'ma make him wait for the pussy
Hit it, then he big ole skeet

The song has sparked conversation about how hip-hop audiences perceive female rappers' discussion of their sexuality:

Megan herself has spoken on this issue. “Dudes can talk about sex all day long, or they can talk about drugs, they can talk about killing people,” she told Complex. “That’s their whole body of work. And then me being a woman, I don’t wanna shoot you. I’m not in the game. I’m not popping pills, so what? I’m not about to talk about that. So I talk about what I love on my body and I talk about what I like to do. So if you wanna listen, you can. If you don’t, that’s you.”

The success of Megan’s song isn’t gravity defying, but it stands as yet another example of how long-term promotion can pay off. Much like Ella Mai’s slow-burning “Boo’d Up,” “Big Ole Freak” benefitted just as much from old-fashioned radio play as it did from any viral moment. The song still only has about 5 million lifetime Spotify streams, far fewer than (for example), the streaming-driven “Pop Out” by Polo G, which sits at No. 74 this week and boasts more than 28 million Spotify streams.

Instead, Megan leveraged viral moments and her growing social following to promote the often-overlooked importance of radio, helping the Houston rapper turn the nearly year-old song into her first Hot 100 hit. As awareness continues to grow, “Big Ole Freak” could keep climbing.

Catch up on all the lyrics to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Big Ole Freak” on Genius now.