Megan Thee Stallion is having a moment. With sexy anthems like “Big Ole Freak” and critically acclaimed mixtapes like Fever, the Houston rapper is establishing herself as one of the most exciting new artists in rap. Her explosive skills behind the mic, unapologetic sex appeal, and electric personality have attracted a rapidly growing fanbase that she calls “the Hotties.”
Born Megan Pete in February 1995, she was born for stardom. At an early age, Megan was heavily influenced by Pimp C and Notorious B.I.G., and while there weren’t a lot of Houston women holding it down in music at the time, she knew that she could shake things up and leave her imprint on the city and the nation. By now, it’s clear Meg’s reign will last longer than one Hot Girl Summer, so pay attention and catch up on everything you need to know about the Megan Thee Stallion below.
She wanted to be a rapper since she was 5, but didn’t kick off her career until 21.
A career in rap has been on Megan’s mind since childhood. In an interview with Essence, she revealed that she wanted to be a rapper since the age of five. She began writing bars in secret when she was a teenager, but when she revealed to her family that she wanted to be an entertainer, her mom said she had to wait until she was 21 to pursue a career.
Her mom was a rapper.
Megan’s mom, Holly Thomas was a rapper who went by the stage name Holly-Wood. She used to bring her daughter to recording sessions as a toddler instead of dropping her off at daycare. When Meg grew older, she studied her mom’s swag on old freestyle DVDs, which eventually sparked her interest in hip-hop. Her mom managed her career until she sadly passed away on March 22, 2019 after suffering from a cancerous brain tumor. “The best mom in the whole world,” Megan wrote in a tribute on Instagram following her mother’s death. “The strongest woman on the planet. I can’t even put complete sentences together, rn. RIP mama.”
She got her stage name because of her height.
Friends have referred to Megan as a “stallion” since she was 15 years old. Uncertain of what the term meant at first, she says she was offended and turned to her uncle for clarity, before finding out a stallion is a compliment given to tall and curvy women in the South. “Since I was younger, I’ve always had the same body,” she told Houstonia. “Older guys would always be like, ‘Oh you a stallion.’ 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. Ever since then everybody’s just been calling me Stallion.”
She has several alter egos.
You never know which version of Megan Thee Stallion you’re going to get, because of all her alter egos. During a conversation with Complex at SXSW, she explained, “My alter egos are basically personalities I go through on a day-to-day basis.” Megan Thee Stallion is the sexy rapper we usually see on stage at concerts. Then you have Tina Snow, which she categorizes as the confident “pimp.” Tina Snow was inspired by Pimp C’s alias, Tony Snow. Next, is Hot Girl Meg who is “like the party girl, the college girl. She likes to turn up.” And finally, there is Meg, the schoolgirl who is “respectful to her parents.”
She wanted to be a plastic surgeon when she was little.
While Megan has repeatedly debunked rumors that she had any cosmetic work done on her body, there was a point in time when she was interested in making plastic surgery her career. “When I was little, I wanted to be a plastic surgeon,” she said on XXL’s What I Do series. “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 shit."
Q-Tip is one of her early mentors.
According to an interview with Okayplayer, Q-Tip was aware of Megan’s talent long before the general public. Before she gained a steady fanbase, Meg received an email from Tip. “We got like a real mysterious email, and the email is one of those things where they say it’s from someone famous who wants to get into communication with you,” Meg remembered. “And 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.” It’s a good thing her mom didn’t listen because the response eventually led to an hour-long phone call with Q, and the rest is history. “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,” she told Okayplayer.
Her career was heavily inspired by Pimp C.
Houston’s own Pimp C was another big role model of Megan’s when she was growing up. Thanks to her mother, Meg constantly listened to the UGK artist in the house as a child. “I would get in the car and my mama would be playing Pimp C. I would get in the car every day after school and be like, “Mama, put on that Pimp,” she told Complex in a Jan. 2019 interview. “So I took it into being grown now, just still bumping him. He just made me feel so cool as a kid. I didn’t even understand what he was saying, but I knew it just felt good. I wish he was alive because I wish I could have met him.”
She is supported by ‘the Hotties.’
Nicki Minaj has the Barbz and Cardi B has Bardi Gang, but Megan Thee Stallion has dubbed her fanbase “the Hotties.” The group of fans are gaining a reputation for their positive and fun-loving attitudes. “If you’re a real hottie, please spread positivity. We real around here and we fw everybody that fw us. No dry hating no dry beef,” Megan once tweeted. Hotties turn up, drive the boat, and they stick up for their loved ones. And unlike other fanbases and stans, they don’t resort to threats or spreading bad vibes. “It’s just one big love circle over here,” one Hottie told Complex.
She is the First Lady of 300.
Megan Thee Stallion is officially the First Lady of the Lyor Cohen and Kevin Liles-founded music imprint, 300 Entertainment. Although several companies offered lucrative music deals, Meg announced in November 2018 that she decided to sign with 300. “Being the First Lady over there, I’m obviously about to break all kinds of barriers,” she told Complex. “But I definitely just want more people to know about me and my music, and I just want it to spread. I don’t feel like my sound is similar to any female artist that’s out right now, so I definitely feel like we just need some Texas flavor. Texas: We have not had a female rapper that is just this booming, so I’m definitely trying to put us on the map, in that aspect.”
She loves anime.
It’s no secret that Megan is a huge anime fanatic. Her concert ensembles and colorful wigs are heavily influenced by the Japanese art form, and on PAPER’s August 2019 cover, she modeled as My Hero Academia character, Todoroki. In an April 2019 interview with Billboard, she attributed her love of anime to the characters and their complicated backstories. “I really like how the characters always has to go through some type of long journey that’s like a crazy struggle,” she explained. “And these anime shows give women power. She’s always the queen or somebody that you cannot beat—I love that.”
She is a rapper by night, and a college student by day.
Megan knows a thing or two about multitasking. When she’s not working on music, she also studies at Texas Southern University, where she is pursuing a career in Health Administration. “Just watching [my grandmother] take care of my [great-grandmother] made me want to create a facility for people who are older to go and have somebody help them with their end-of-life care,” she told Vulture, discussing her goal to open an assisted living facility.
She is the one behind the ‘Hot Girl Summer’ phenomenon.
Megan is the leader of the Hot Girl Summer movement. While the definition of this phenomenon varies depending on who you ask, Meg set the record straight on Twitter about what being a hot girl is all about, saying it “is about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident, living YOUR truth, being life of the party, etc.” Then, in July, it was revealed that she filed to trademark the phrase.
She doesn’t care if you have a problem with her rapping about sex.
There is a lot of talk about women in hip-hop only rapping about a few topics: sex, money, and the club. But if you ask Megan, she doesn’t get a damn about your opinion. “If you don’t like it, don’t have to listen,” she told Complex in 2018. “Dudes can talk about sex all day long, or they can talk about drugs, they can talk about killing people. That’s their whole body of work. And then me being a woman, I don’t wanna shoot you. I’m not in the game. I’m not popping pills, so what? I’m not about to talk about that. So I talk about what I love on my body and I talk about what I like to do.”
