Megan Thee Stallion Just Wants to Encourage Women, Covers GQ Men of the Year Issue!
The Female Rapper on Her Traumatic Summer, Her Racy Lyrics, and Confidence in Black Women
“I want Black women to be louder,” Megan Thee Stallion says. “I want us to be sassier. I want us to demand more, be more outspoken, keep speaking and just keep demanding what you deserve. Don’t change—just get better. Grow from these situations. Don’t be beating yourself up about these situations…I feel we keep this stuff in and there’s some kind of way we flip it on ourselves. We didn’t fuck up—we didn’t do something wrong.” Megan covers the annual GQ Men of the Year issue with a feature by Allison P. Davis, and a spread by Adrienne Raquel. She is being celebrated along with iconic actor George Clooney, and TV host Trevor Noah.
This summer, Megan was shot by rapper Torey Lanez. The subsequent drama played out in the court of public opinion with some viciously criticizing Megan and discrediting her experience. “Like, I never put my hands on nobody,” she says. “I barely even said anything to the man who shot me when I was walking away…” She maintains that Lanez immediately offered her hush money: “[At this point] I’m really scared because this is like right in the middle of all the protesting. Police are just killing everybody for no reason, and I’m thinking, ‘I can’t believe you even think I want to take some money. Like, you just shot me.’” Wanting to avoid trouble and worried about police brutality, Megan told the responding officers that her bloody feet were the results of getting cut. Looking back she says, “…when something actually happens to you, when you properly should have protected yourself, your first instinct was not to protect yourself, it was protecting other people…So it was like, ‘What do I do?’ ‘What do I say?’ Like, ‘Is anybody going to believe what I’m saying?’”
Apart from the chaos of the shooting, Megan’s career has reached new heights this year. She released two hits: Savage, which spawned a Beyonce remix, and WAP with Cardi B, which led to both acclaim and criticism for its raunchy lyrics. “Sometimes people are really not comfortable enough with themselves, and I don’t think they like to watch other people be comfortable with themselves. And I don’t think they want anybody to teach other people how to be comfortable with themselves,” she says. “I feel like a lot of men just get scared when they see women teaching other women to own sex for themselves. Sex is something that it should be good on both ends, but a lot of times it feels like it’s something that men use as a weapon or like a threat. I feel like men think that they own sex, and I feel like it scares them when women own sex.” She continues: “…Sometimes you just got to remind people that you’re magical and everything about you down to your vagina and to your toes is magical.”
A huge part of Megan’s appeal is her empowering nature, her confidence. And she plans to continue spreading that confidence to all women in everything she does. “Even if it’s me rapping or if it’s me having a conversation with somebody, I’m going to make you feel like you are that bitch. Because you’re already that bitch—you somehow just need it stirred up for you. It’s like, when you put the Kool-Aid in the water and it all fall to the bottom. But when you mix it up with the sugar, now it’s Kool-Aid. You just need somebody to stir it up for you. That’s me.”
The full feature, with photos by Adrienne Raquel can be found here.
The December issue of GQ is available November 17.
Featured image courtesy of GQ by Adrienne Raquel
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Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.
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