Megan Thee Stallion’s pleasure principles
Sultry rapper sets music world on its ear with brazen lyrics and racy overtones
The key to understanding the rise of Megan Thee Stallion isn't the internet's latest Hot Girl Summer explainer. It's a two-minute YouTube video called Stalli Freestyle.
The video, which was uploaded in November 2017, features Megan Thee Stallion rapping melodically in a suburb of her native Houston. She swerves effortlessly from boasting about her attractiveness to bragging about her rap skills. One bar incorporates the word “onomatopoeias,” which bounces off the asphalt like smouldering skipping rocks. Sex is a recurring theme — and Megan Thee Stallion doesn't mince words: “If it ain't good, I ain't fittin' to fake it.”
Stalli Freestyle marks an early point in the ascent of the 24-yearold rapper, born Megan Pete, whose brazen lyrics and transfixing delivery earned her a place in this year's iteration of XXL magazine's famed freshman class.
The video, which has clocked in more than three million views, evokes the no-frills ciphers that first got Megan Thee Stallion noticed, while also establishing the rapper as one to watch. In the roughly 21 months since, Megan Thee Stallion has delivered on that promise with her 2018 EP Tina Snow and her well-reviewed mix tape, Fever, released earlier this year.
Both projects exude the sultry braggadocio that Megan Thee Stallion projected in Stalli Freestyle, which featured the rapper wooing the camera in two different crop top/jogger pant ensembles. Tina Snow has spawned some of the rapper's most recognizable tracks, including her first Billboard 100 hit, Big Ole Freak.
The razor-sharp Hot Girl Summer puts other women on notice: Megan Thee Stallion can take your man and his money — not that she needs either.
The latter plays on a common refrain in rap, but Megan Thee Stallion gives romantic rivalry its time and place. She is far from the first woman to rap frankly about sex, but her lyrics — the bulk of which she pens herself — place a refreshing emphasis on female pleasure and desire that effectively champions the women who embrace her music.
Megan Thee Stallion also stands out because of the influences that manifest in her work. She was first inspired by her late mother, who rapped under the name Holly-Wood, but many of her other models were men. Tina Snow is a nod to the late Underground Kingz (UGK) rapper Pimp C, whose aliases included “Tony Snow;” Fever features samples from the Houston duo, in addition to Project Pat and Three 6 Mafia. Ultimately, Megan Thee Stallion's message isn't about sex at all — it's about power.
Megan Thee Stallion has resisted the sexism that has pitted her predecessors and peers against each other. This month, she palled around with Nicki Minaj (a frequent target/instigator of female rap beef ) on Instagram Live. And Megan Thee Stallion has been quick to praise contemporaries including her friend Maliibu Miitch and fellow XXL frosh Rico Nasty in interviews. “Everybody got their own swag,” she told Vulture earlier this year. “And I just really appreciate what everybody brings to the table.”
But sexism persists in the industry. Veteran producer Jermaine Dupri was asked, in a recent PeopleTV interview, whether he was a fan of any contemporary female rappers, with one interviewer citing Megan Thee Stallion, Minaj and Cardi B. “I feel like they're all rapping about the same thing,” Dupri said.
“I don't think they're showing us who is the best rapper. It's like strippers rapping.”
His comments prompted widespread rebuke, including a pointed retort from Cardi B (the only rapper mentioned with a documented and proud past in stripping).
Megan Thee Stallion weighed in during an interview with Miami's 99 JAMZ, offering a meme-worthy response: “Who is he?” (Dupri, whose producing talents have always overshadowed his own rap attempts, doubled down in an interview with Atlanta Black Star suggesting female rappers create a new genre: “strap,” as in stripper rap.)
Dupri may not be on board, but Megan Thee Stallion has the approval of the masses. Her attention-grabbing moniker (which co-opts a slang term for tall, thick women) has inspired social media users to add thee to their names (or to other people's names) as shorthand for superlative greatness. And then there's the aforementioned Hot Girl Summer meme, inspired by the rapper, who — according to Billboard — hopes to trademark the catchphrase. Megan Thee Stallion told the Root that Hot Girl Summer is “about women and men being unapologetically them, just having a good ... time, hyping up their friends, doing you.”