BET Awards ‘20: 7 Things You Didn’t Know about Nominee Megan Thee Stallion
You’d be hard pressed to name anyone that has had a stellar year than Houston’s breakout rap star Megan Thee Stallion. With her bold raps and unapologetic sex appeal, the 25-year-old has proven she’s not just one of the hottest rappers in the game right now, she’s a whole movement unto herself. Since her introduction, the 25-year-old has been setting the charts ablaze with her acclaimed Fever mixtape before catapulting to the top of rap’s food chain with “Hot Girl Summer.”
Not to mention her undeniable talent has garnered co-signs from a number of rap/hip-hop elites, such as Q-Tip, Nicki Minaj, and Pimp-C, and none other than Queen Bey. in March 2020, she released her latest EP, Suga, and its track “Savage” was an immediate hit, spawning the viral #Savage TikTok challenge. Then, Beyoncé hopped on the song’s official remix, propelling it to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Even in quarantine, she hasn’t slowed down. Megan is slated to perform at the 20th annual BET Awards where she leads nominees alongside Roddy Ricch behind Drake with five nominations for Album of the Year, Best Collaboration, Best Female Hip Hop Artist, Video of the Year and Viewers Choice Award.
Ahead of her performance, here are seven facts about her that you should know.
Megan was inspired to start rapping by her late mother, Holly Thomas, when she was five years old.
Thomas, who rapped under the moniker Holly-Wood, regularly took Megan to the studio with her, which is where Megan developed her passion for music.
“When she would take me to the studio with her, she would think I’m in the next room doing little kid stuff, coloring, watching TV, and I’m really like ear to the door, thinking, ‘Yeah, uh-huh I’ma do that, too.’ She used to let me listen to Biggie and Pimp C, so I never wanted to rap like my mom; I wanted to rap like them,” she told Vulture in 2019.
She started writing raps when she was a teenger never but never got serious about it until she went to college, although her mother had one stipulation: Megan had to finish her degree. Sadly, Thomas passed away in 2019 from brain cancer and her grandmother two weeks later, but Megan is still holding fast to their dreams for her. Even though her career has since taken off, she’s taking online college courses part-time, telling PEOPLE, “I’m doing it for me, but I’m also doing it for the women in my family who made me who I am today.”
She got her stage name because of her height.
“Since I was younger, probably about 15 or 16, I’ve always had the same body. Older guys would always be like, Oh, you a stallion. So I finally had to ask like, is that a good thing? Everybody pretty much took it and ran with it, and then I put it as my main name on Twitter, and ever since then everybody’s just been calling me Stallion,” she explained to Houstonia. “And the H-town hottie, that’s just a nickname I gave for myself—I thought it sounded cool, so I was like, yeah, I’ll be that.”
Megan almost didn’t participate in the now-viral ‘Houston Cypher.’
In 2016, the world was introduced to Megan Thee Stallion through the “Houston Cypher.” As the sole female rapper, Megan immediately had all eyes on her when she dropped her first bars. It put Megan on the radar, but the 25-year-old revealed to Vulture that it all kind of happened last minute.
“My homeboy was like, ‘Megan, I need you to come with me to this cypher. And I’m like, ‘A cypher? I ain’t going to that,’ she recalled. “And he was like, ‘No, for real, Megan. It’s gonna be lit, come on.’ So I was like, ‘All right, cool. I’ma go.’”
If there were ever any lingering questions about her potential, Megan cemented that she wasn’t a flash in the pan with her “Stalli Freestyle,” a rework of XXXTentacion’s sleeper hit “Look At Me.” She’s been setting the charts ablaze ever since.
She is a huge fan of anime.
Megan has been unabashed about her love for Japanese animation, sharing with Crunchyroll that was first drawn to anime after watching Inuyasha when it aired on Adult Swim growing up.
“I like how you see a character, and it starts off, he's not really the strongest, he might be a little weak, but he has to go through all this training. You grow with the character. You see all the trials and tribulations they go through,” she explained. “Then you meet new people along the way that help them become the person he needs to be. I apply that to my life a lot.”
When she appeared on the 2019 cover of Paper magazine, Megan debuted a My Hero Academia-inspired look based on the series’ character Shoto Todoroki that she calls “Todoroki Tina.”
Before she found her passion in rap, Megan initially wanted to be a plastic surgeon.
“I used to watch Dr. 90210 and I would see the ladies would get up after they got their boobs done, or their nose job and they'll be all happy and s**t," she told XXL. However, that calling was not in the cards for Megan due to her aversion to the sight of blood. She pondered over what would allow to help “make ladies feel like bad b***hes,” ultimately settling on music.
Q-Tip was one of her earliest mentors.
Right when she was starting to blow up, Megan told OkayPlayer that she received a “mysterious email” informing her that someone famous was trying to get in contact with her. However, Megan was not buying it.
“I’m like, “Momma that sound funny, I don’t think we should reply.” I don’t even know why my momma would reply but whatever made her reply I’m glad she did because it actually wound up being Q-Tip. I think they exchanged numbers so when they got on the phone and everything his assistant was like, “Oh, yes it’s Q-Tip and he loves Meg and whoopty whoop,” she recollected. “It just all started from there, and we were on the phone for like an hour. He is just so supportive and he loves the way I rap and he really rocked with me. So every time I go to New York I have to hang with him. He’s like a mentor. He’s just amazing. Everything that I put out I probably let him listen to it before I put it out just so I can hear him gas me so I know I’m on the right path. He’s a pioneer. So, the stamp of approval from him means a lot.”
She lost her father when she was 15 years old.
Not much is said about Megan’s father, but she shared with the Rolling Stone that he was incarcerated for the first eight years of her life. Despite the lost time, she formed a fast bond with her father, but sadly, he passed away when she was 15 years old. In a tribute to him on Father’s Day, Megan called him “the best dad in the world, my first best friend, [and] my partner in crime when my mom would fuss at us.”
“He passed when I was 15 but I still apply every lesson he taught me at an early age in my life to this day! I miss you every day,” she wrote along with a childhood photo of them together.
Earlier this year, the 25-year-old told Marie Claire that her late father instilled her with a strong sense of self and to never settle for less.
“I saw how he treated my mom, and I saw how my dad treated me," she told the publication. "I have so many strong positive influences. I’m not going to lower my standards.”
