When Megan Thee Stallion first stepped onto the scene, people quickly became enamored. Not just by her good looks, statuesque body and hypnotic twerking, but also her confidence in herself. That same confidence rings throughout her music and even on stage. But she wasn't always this fearless. The H-town hottie had to discover who she was in order to stop being what everyone else wanted her to be. Like many women, finding her voice was a journey, and in the 26-year-old's case, she used that voice to achieve an accomplished career.
Megan Thee Stallion, born Megan Peete, already has three Grammy awards as well as several BET awards and she launched a line with Fashion Nova and has her own Hottie sauce with Popeyes. Now, she is gearing up to graduate college soon.
While it may appear that her career happened overnight, it actually has been a long road for the "Savage" rapper and she recently spoke with Glamour magazine about it after they named her one of the "Women of the Year," a deserving title I might add.
The raptress recalls wanting to satisfy everyone when she was growing up. Something that a lot of people can relate to.
"I used to be a people-pleaser because I did want everyone happy," said Megan. "If you come around me, I always try to make sure everybody good. Before I was grown, I'm doing whatever my parents say. I'm doing things that make my parents happy. At school, I'm trying to figure out what's going to make these kids stop bullying me. But when I started getting older, I started figuring out, everything that y'all asking me to do not make me happy."
She added, "It seems like I can never satisfy everybody. So then I started being like, 'What do I like?' I'm an only child, so I had a lot of time to spend by myself to think about it. I'm here by myself all day; what we gon' do, Megan? That's how I figured out I really do enjoy writing music. I love writing stories. I started living for me."
By the time Megan reached college, she was ready to show everyone the real her and that meant you had to respect it.
"How I come off, that's how everybody treated me. If I commanded my respect, I demanded my respect; if I'm showing you how confident I am, then you have no choice but to treat me that way."
Now a rap superstar, Megan has become an example for people, particularly Black women, that our voice matters and that our feelings matter.
In October 2020, the "Girls in the Hood" rapper wrote an op-ed essay for The New York Times where she addressed violence against women following the alleged shooting by Tory Lanez, women in hip-hop being pitted against each other, and more.
She wrote that she believes violence against women "happens because too many men treat all women as objects, which helps them to justify inflicting abuse against us when we choose to exercise our own free will."
Keep up the good work, sis!
Featured image by Theo Wargo/Getty Images