Megan Thee Stallion On Rap’s Double Standards: ‘A Man Can Be As Mediocre As He Wants To Be But Still Be Praised’
2019 was a historical moment for women in rap, particularly rising Houston rap sensation Megan Thee Stallion.
The 25-year-old blew up on the charts hit single by hit single thanks to the success of her Fever mixtape and rampaging Hot Girl Summer movement. For 2020, Megan released her third EP, Suga, amid legal troubles with her label, 1501 Certified Entertainment. The project was well-received by fans and critics alike. But despite her ascending success, the Hot Girl leader and some of her fellow rap contemporaries still face the age-old criticism of lewd, raunchy and X-rated rap artistry repeatedly targeted at female rap artists.
Most famously, So So Def Mogul Jermaine Dupri was called out online after he likened the women rappers of today to “stripper rap.” Jermaine’s sentiments reignited the ancient debate on double standards between male and female rappers.
In her cover story for Marie Claire’s May 2020 issue, Megan also agreed that there’s still a dissonance between the respect female rappers receive in comparison to their male counterparts. She questioned the real premise beneath the contradictory standards that exist within lyricism by male rappers and female rap artists.
“A man can be as mediocre as he wants to be but still be praised,” she told the publication. “A man can talk about how he’s about to do all of these drugs and then come and shoot your house up. But as soon as I say something about my vagina, it’s the end of the world? What are you really mad about? You cannot be mad about me rapping about sex. That’s not what you’re mad about.”
The Tina Snow MC added that she felt “it’s something deeper.”
“Not only am I rapping about sex, I’m rapping about you making me feel good. I’m not rapping about licking on you. No, you’re going to do what I told you to do, and I feel like sometimes that can be a little intimidating....Sometimes it’s overwhelming to some men,” she theorized. “They can’t handle it, they get a little shook, they get a little scared. But I’m not going nowhere, so get used to it.”
The “Savage” rapper’s latest commentary comes after she previously addressed criticism over her love for twerking. “I don't know when it happened, that sometimes people get offended by twerking, but that shit is crazy,” she told Genius. “I love to throw my ass. I love to shake my a**. That's one of my favorite things to do, and I be seeing motherf**ers be like, ‘All you do is shake your ass.’”
Nonetheless, she was unfazed. ‘I be like, ‘Damn. Actually, I go to school and I rap and sometimes I be cooking. I'm a dog mom. I'm an awesome friend. [Twerking is] not all I be doing," Megan noted. “It's just that maybe when you're logging in, you came to see me twerk. 'Cause you ain't see that freestyle I just dropped?' I can rap and twerk.”
Read her new interview with Marie Claire here.
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