Words by Nicole Collins
From hit singles to game-changing philanthropy, Megan Thee Stallion has earned her stripes as Rapper of the Year.
Megan Thee Stallion has been the name hanging off the lips of near enough everyone this year. Whether you’re talking about living your hot girl summer or singing along to the vulgar lyrics of “WAP”, it’s safe to say you’ve probably been influenced by Megan one way or another during 2020.
From being a small Soundcloud rapper to becoming one of the most powerful, well-known female rappers of this generation, Megan has caught the attention of some of the biggest names in the industry. She has quickly risen to the status of worldwide powerhouse celebrity and, so far, has used her platform to uplift her morals and share her body-loving, women-empowering and sex-positive messages. At just 25 years old, Megan has marked her territory and made it clear that her success is not temporary – her rise to international stardom is only on the up.
Megan Jovon Ruth Pete’s story began in Houston, Texas. Her mother, Holly Aleece Thomas, was also a rapper, who performed under the stage name Holly-Wood. Thomas introduced Megan to the world of artistic freestyle and sickening flows in her early days, bringing her to recording sessions instead of sending her to daycare. Megan grew up around the influences of Notorious B.I.G. and Pimp C, so it didn’t come as a surprise to Thomas when Megan informed her mother of her desire to pursue a rap career at 16. Thomas, aware of the lifestyle and culture surrounding the industry, requested that Megan wait until she was 21 to engage in a professional music career. But despite Megan’s compliance with her mother’s wishes, she persisted to showcase her rapping abilities publicly through social media and Soundcloud, eventually building a strong following on platforms like Instagram after a video of her freestyle battle against entirely male opponents went viral. This gave Megan the foundation she needed to transition into a professional rap career.
But this didn’t mean she broke her promise to her mother. Megan enrolled at Texas Southern University for health administration and is currently in her third year, eager to make her mother – who sadly died from brain cancer in 2019 – proud. Speaking on her mother’s academic influence, Megan opened up in an interview with People about progressing with her education, despite her crippling chart success: “I want to get my degree because I really want my mom to be proud,” she explained, “she saw me going to school before she passed.”
Her mother’s pride would be elevated by Megan’s creation of the ‘Don’t Stop’ fund, for which she partners with Amazon Music to award $10,000 scholarships to allow of colour to attend university: “In honour of all the young women out there who don’t stop working hard to get their education! Women remain underrepresented and undervalued in society and female students of colour are at a larger disadvantage when it comes to access to financial resources.” It’s refreshing to see a celebrity with a such large platform doing what she can to benefit the more disadvantaged among us.
Megan’s stage name, Megan Thee Stallion, derives from her adolescence, where she would be referred to as a stallion given her height and curvaceous figure. Her adoption of the name only goes to emphasise the self-loving themes circulating her music and brand, and it’s certainly fitting when considering the commercial success of her career so far.
After releasing her debut single “Like a Stallion” on Soundcloud, Megan continued to release mixtapes including “Rich Ratchet”and “Megan Mix” in 2017. In 2018, she became the first female rapper to sign to baseball player Carl Crawford’s independent record label, 1501 Certified Entertainment. Here, she produced her Tina Snow EP and her mixtape Fever, which was met with unanimous critical acclaim – Paper called it “the best album of 2019.”
The same year, after a viral meme emerged from an Instagram Live in which Megan laughed about having a “hot girl summer”, a song of the same name was released featuring rap sensation Nicki Minaj and singer Ty Dolla Sign. It peaked at number eleven on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Megan’s first top twenty hit, also topping the Rolling Stone 100. Since its release, the phrase “hot girl summer” has been frequently used by women as a means to uplift themselves and others.
At the start of 2020, Megan released her Suga EP, which featured the talents of R&B superstar Kehlani and rapper Gunna. Due to the commercial success of “Savage”, Beyonce featured on a remix of the track in April 2020, which saw all proceeds go to the non-profit organisation, Bread of Life, which provides disaster relief for residents of Houston affected by COVID-19. In August this year, Megan featured on Cardi B’s controversial single, “WAP”. It quickly became the artist’s second number-one single in the US and broke the record for the most streams for a song in its first week of US release at 93 million streams.
“WAP” was met with widespread critical acclaim, earning praise (and shame) for its the abundance of sexual innuendos and sex-positive messages. Singing about sex appears to be the young artist’s forte – in her interview with GQ for the Rapper of The Year award, she spoke on her stance on sex-positivity. She explained: “I feel like a lot of men just get scared when they see women teaching other women to own sex for themselves. I feel like men think that they own sex, and I feel like it scares them when women own sex.”
With the Grammy nominations announced last week, Megan earned herself four shots at different awards. She has been nominated for Best New Artist, Record of The Year (“Savage Remix”), Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song (“Savage Remix”).
Megan Thee Stallion is only 25, and in a short space of time has accumulated a hoard of awards, cultivated a strong, passionate fanbase and has continuously topped her own success. She is an advocate for women of colour and an empowering figure who celebrates body positivity – she isn’t just a talented rapper, she’s a philanthropist and an inspiration. And she keeps getting better.