Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion release 'WAP'

Why it matters

"WAP" came out August 7, 2020, on Atlantic. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion split the verses. Ayo & Keyz produced the beat, which interpolates Frank Ski's 1993 Baltimore-club track "Whores in This House." The song debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the largest opening week of any song in 2020 and was inescapable on US radio for most of the late summer. The song is two women rapping explicitly about their sexual preferences and demands, in language and detail no women's rap song had ever taken to the top of the Hot 100. The accompanying Colin Tilly-directed video (with cameos from Normani, Rosalía, Kylie Jenner, and others) accumulated 600 million YouTube views within six months. The cultural conversation was substantial: conservative commentators (notably Ben Shapiro) attempted to read the lyrics on camera in protest and produced one of the most-mocked viral video moments of 2020. The song was probably the single most-discussed pop release of pandemic-summer 2020. You can hear why. The song is what it sounds like it is. The conversation was the conversation. Both worked.