In a new cover story with The Fader, Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion opened up about her career since releasing her debut album Fever, and how being a woman in the hip-hop industry has forced her to overcome gender-specific obstacles.
When it comes to rappers adopting the repetitive model mainstream hip-hop has collectively shifted towards in recent years, Megan's not the biggest fan. “To see that it changed from something that I love so much to what’s going on right now really blew my mind,” she said. “Like, we not rapping no more?”
The rapper also believes the industry is more critical of her lyric-heavy flows because she's a woman. "Being a girl too—they criticize you harder than they criticize men," she explained. "If I was out there making little noises like Uzi and Carti be making, they would not rock with that. And not saying that they don’t be going hard, because we definitely finna turn up to both of them, but if it was a chick, like—no."
Although she notes the disadvantage, Megan maintains the style of rap she became familiar with while watching her mother's—rapper Holly Wood—freestyle DVDs, in addition to listening to artists like Notorious B.I.G. and UGK. The rapper also recalled when she flexed her freestyling for the first time in college.
"When you go to college you can just be whoever you wanna be. So I got there and I’m like, 'Yeah, I’ma rapper,'" she recalls. "One day I was at this party, and these dudes was freestyling and I was like, I could rap, and they was like, 'No you can’t.'" Megan says she spit a couple of bars in an attempt to prove them wrong. "They was like Oh! So then everybody around school knew me as Thee Stallion. And she could rap."
Fever has been widely applauded since its release, however Thee Stallion was forced to respond to ghostwriting rumors after social media personality Wolftyla claimed he contributed to the Fever track "Simon Says." The rapper explained that while Juicy J gave her the hook, she doesn't often take ideas pitched to her by other rappers.
