Megan Thee Stallion Challenges Patriarchy In Hip-Hop
Since it’s beginning on 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Morris Heights section of the Boogie Down Bronx. Hip-Hop has predominantly been a male-centric cultural expression. As one of it’s pillars, men have outnumbered women in large numbers in the art of MCing. While there’s always been a contingent of pioneering female MC’s in Hip-Hop music, over the last few years, the tide has turned in significant ways as a large conclave of women, from all different regions of the country are simultaneously making a name for themselves in the rap game. Without question, one of the women leading the way is the magnetic Houston Native, Megan Thee Stallion.
As the daughter of an MC, her late mother Molly Thomas, rapping under the moniker Holly-Wood, the 24 years-old’s entry into the rap mainstream was not like many of the women who have come before her. She didn’t arrive on the scene as the “girl” who was endorsed by an established rap crew. She’s been meticulously building her resume ever since she burst on the scene with her show-stealing freestyle over Drake’s “4pm In Calabasas” went viral on social media. Her club banger “Big Ole Freak,” off the Tina Snow mixtape, became her first song to crack the Billboard Hot 100. Her buzz got a her a deal with 300 Entertainment as the first female rapper on the label. Meg manages to be the latest Hip-Hop sensation while matriculating at Texas Southern University studying towards a degree in Health Administration., with plans to graduate this Fall.
Although she has a legion of fans, “Hot Girl Meg” is not without her detractors. She’s been criticized for her sexualized image and her affinity for twerking. Responding to the critics, “Tina Snow” argued, “We gotta break these double-standards and get women to loosen up a bit. We gotta show them that we can do what we want to do how we want to do it. If someone doesn’t like it, they can get to stepping.” Meg’s sex-positive, Black Girl Magic is threatening to the misogyny and patriarchy that’s deeply imbedding with Hip-Hop. In a culture that still operates like a “good ole boys club,” her unabashed love for herself and her body intimidates those who subscribe to toxic masculinity. “It’s not just about being sexy” she asserts. “It’s about being confident and me being confident in my sexuality.”
With the release of her debut album Fever, Thee Stallion has proven that she is more than a one trick pony. She is a skilled MC, a southern belle, college educated, unapologetically sexual, and her brand of Black femininity doesn’t seek the permission from the “boys club” of the rap game.She’s come to take over.”I don’t feel like we ever really had a female rapper come from Houston or Texas and shut shit down. So that’s where I’m coming from” she says. Megan Thee Stallion is not here to be subservient to the Black male gaze but to challenge the patriarchal normativity in Hip-Hop. The Stallion has come to slay and she is a force to be reckoned with.
About the author: Rashad Grove is a journalist who writes about music, pop culture, sports, politics, and everything Black. His work has appeared on BET, Billboard, MTV News, AllHipHop, Revolt TV, Okayplayer, High Snobiety, The Source Magazine, and others.
