Megan Thee Stallion: Real Hot Girl S***

If 2020 has been good to us in any way, it has been through Megan Thee Stallion’s release of her fourth studio album “Suga” and multiple top chart singles including “WAP” and the “Savage” remix. Megan Thee Stallion’s popularity has sky rocketed in the last two years, and her fan base continues to grow in size and strength. Despite the outpouring of love and admiration she receives from her fans and colleagues, Megan has been the target of intense (sometimes sexist and/or racist) criticism.

Megan Thee Stallion was raised Megan Pete in Houston Texas. Born 1995, she grew up listening to the female hip hop and R&B artists of the decade, like Lauryn Hill, Lil’ Kim, and Missy Elliot. Aside from listening to rap, Megan was learning how to rap first hand from visiting the studio with her mother, who was a rapper herself. She taught Megan that women were rappers too, and that they too belong in the rap game. Young Megan began writing verses over her mom’s CDs and eventually started free-styling. While attending Texas Southern University, videos of her free-styles made her “famous” on campus. Her mother became her manager soon after in order to help her establish her musical career at 21. 

Megan Thee Stallion’s music is provocative to say the least. Her lyrics are relentlessly sensual, as are her music videos and performances. To some people, the content of her music is simply offensive. On the contrary, however, many people find her music empowering, and identify with the “hot girl” movement she has created. When writing her songs, Megan relies heavily on channelling the black female artists (including her mother) she has always admired. Like Lauryn Hill and her peers from the 90s, Megan enjoys frequently collaborating with her fellow female hip hop artists. The rap industry exhibits a long lived misogynistic tendency to pit women against one another (Nicki Minaj vs Cardi B., Lil’ Kim vs Foxy Brown). Instead of submitting to this domineering, hostile culture that discourages women from collaborating with one another, Megan embraces the women that would often be considered her competitors, including Beyonce and Cardi B. She sees no reason why their success cannot be collaborative. 

Megan’s music reflects her value for women, including herself, and her value for autonomy. . As a black woman, she has faced scrutiny from the general public as well as others in the music industry. People have accused Megan of having had plastic surgery, as well as faking her love for anime and dating whatever men are publicly in her life. In addition to these comments, bigots often voice their racist and sexist judgements in her comment sections on social media, as well as in tabloid news articles. As opposed to responding online, Megan responds to her hateful audience members through her music. She continues to release hit after hit song, each following her characteristic lyrical style accompanied by a hard beat.

Megan prefers to write music and lyrics alone so that she can do it exactly the way she wants to. She does not like the idea of anyone else having control over her creative process or product. The lyrics are down right nasty, filled with sexually explicit content and curse words. Megan claims she derives much of the inspiration for her lyrics from her mom’s “gangster” tongue. Besides this, she relies on her own unconscious inspiration to generate possible lyrics line by line. Megan writes her music to be in direct opposition to the cultural limitations that are put on black women. When she is told to tone it down, or to be less sexual, or to be less aggressive, she does the opposite. She uses her music as a tool to get the message across that she will not be controlled or restricted, and that she claims ownership of her life. Megan’s musical influence extends further than her multiple appearances on Billboard’s Top 100 list; it symbolizes a popular counter culture that she has created through the hot girl movement. Her music makes the bold statement that being sexy and powerful is not limited to those select few women that appeal to Western/Eurocentric standards of beauty. Megan’s divergence from the status quo is reflective of Western creative ideals in that she is creating something original and individual. She is not taking anyone else’s ideas and adding her own flare to them; Megan takes pride in being completely unique and transparently owning her body positive, sex loving, powerful persona.