Artist Profile: Megan Thee Stallion

Megan Jovon Ruth Pete, also known as Megan Thee Stallion, is a rapper, singer, and songwriter. She was born on February 15, 1995, in Houston, Texas. She got popular after her freestyling videos started garnering attention on the internet. many of her songs got very popular on the app Tik Tok as a lot of people started making dancing videos to her songs. She became one of the most popular female rappers before even having a debut album out. 

Megan has always been rapping. Her mom was a rapper before her and you can tell Megan is very inspired by her mom and is following in her footsteps. Megan would steal her mom’s beats and CDs while writing her verses when she was as young as seven. She continued to write raps all through high school. However, she wasn’t very confident about her music at the time and didn’t expect to become a rapper as she had different plans for her future. Megan wanted to become a plastic surgeon. Megan said she has always been motivated to make other people feel their best and confident, that was her motivation for becoming a plastic surgeon. After Megan saw how much schooling was necessary, she decided that maybe it wasn’t for her. In her senior year of high school, she got inspired by two guys freestyling outside her school and decided to tell them she raps too. When she started freestyling, the guys were impressed and from then she started to feel more confident about rapping. Another reason why she became a rapper is that she didn’t see many female rappers making music like her favorite rappers such as Biggie Smalls and Tupac. Growing up she wanted to hear female rappers make music like that so her inspiration comes from making music she wished she could have heard as a child. In regards to her stage name, she said that when she was 15 a guy called her a “Stallion” after a football game at her school. She asked her uncle what the word stallion means and her uncle told her it’s just a slang word to compliment ‘tall and pretty girls’. Later on, when Megan was close to graduating, she told her mom that she could rap and that she wanted to become a rapper in the future. Her mom doubted her, but after hearing Megan’s first verse she was impressed. She didn’t like the vulgar language Megan used in her verse, so her mom told her that she couldn’t rap like that until she turned 21. But tragically when Megan’s career started blowing up, her mother sadly passed away from a brain tumor. Her mom supported her very early in her career and Megan continued to rap to keep her mom’s legacy alive. 

Megan started making a name for herself and becoming popular when she starred in a Houston based cipher freestyle. She started garnering attention from a lot of Houston based rappers and quickly became known in her city. Later on, Megan signed with the company 1501 Entertainment, becoming the first female rapper on the label. Megan dropped her first mixtape in 2017 called “Rich Ratchet,” following it with an EP called “Make it Hot,” then later dropping another following mixtape called “Tina Snow” in the same year. Megan was later recognized by the label 300 Entertainment and started becoming known more worldwide, she was the first female rapper in that label as well. Later on, Megan went on to drop her 3rd mixtape called “Fever” and work on the track “Hot Girl Summer” with the queen of rap herself Nicki Minaj. The song ended up placing number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, which was Megan’s first time charting. Earlier this year (2020), Megan released her fourth mixtape titled “SUGA” which instantly became popular, the song “Savage” started garnering a lot of attention on Tik Tok as a lot of people started making dancing videos to it. One of Megan’s dreams was to collaborate with Beyonce as she was her mom’s favorite singer. Her dream came true in early 2020, as Beyonce was featured on her song “Savage.” The song quickly became even more popular than it already was and reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. She also put out a song with popular female rapper Cardi B named “WAP”, which became extremely popular on Tik Tok and also got a #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has been Megan’s longest-charting song. Megan recently put out her debut album titled “Good News,” which has started charting already with her song “Body” garnering much of the attention. 

I believe Megan still has a long way to go and a lot of goals she wants to accomplish. It’s very satisfying to see Megan accomplish her dreams and make a name for herself in the rap industry. I hope she keeps releasing amazing music in the future, I’m looking forward to what she has in store next.