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The summer of 2019 had a sound, a meme, a hashtag and an entire mood set by a then 24-year-old rapper from Houston named Megan Thee Stallion. #HotGirlSummer started out as a tweet that morphed into a meme that became a chart-topping track featuring Nicki Minaj that catapulted the artist into a national spotlight, with legions of fans she has nicknamed her Hotties. The genius of Hot Girl Summer is that it was much more than a song it was a feeling, propagated by social media, particularly Instagram and TikTok, of freedom and abandon that could contain everything from a performance of Megan twerking while wearing a particularly bright pair of lime green chaps to a photograph of Tom Hanks smiling beatifically while wearing a white dress shirt tied in a knot.

Megan Thee Stallion, born Megan Pete, has been making music and music videos since high school, steadily building a following by releasing songs and freestyling on local radio shows. In 2016, she appeared against a city skyline in a compilation video of local Texas rappers, distinguishing herself with her cool demeanor and laser-precision flow. She later refined her style in a sun-drenched YouTube video called Stalli Freestyle, which collected millions of views, and her EP Tina Snow. Her first album, Fever, followed last year and her latest, Suga, began streaming this month.

I caught up with her on a cold night in February, fresh off a performance on The Tonight Show, Starring Jimmy Fallon, at the 21 Club, a midtown Manhattan restaurant. Megan, a health-administration student at Texas Southern University, arrived in sweatpants and a Dragon Ball Z T-shirt, along with 4oe, her gunmetal gray French bulldog puppy, to talk about the aftermath of going viral, the sanctuary of alter egos and what she hopes to do by the time she turns 40.

Jenna Wortham: As a 90s baby, do you feel as if your career and music are Internet-first?

Meghan Thee Stallion: The main reason I am where I am today is because of the Internet, but the crazy thing is I didnt grow up online. My mom played UGK, Biggie and Lil Kim, and my dad was a big Three 6 Mafia fan, so the music I was listening to was already grown. When I got old enough to curse and rap, I was thinking, What would Biggie think about this? Would Pimp C like this? Even though my career does really well because of the Internet, my style is not new. I watched old DVDs of people in Houston and videos of guys in a circle, rapping, freestyling with each other. Showcases. I was thinking, I have to rap my ass off. Every time I had the opportunity to go somewhere and freestyle, I would do that, because thats what I was looking at.

Arielle Bobb-Willis for The New York Times

I wonder if its that combination the expertise and focus and being so deep in that rap tradition combined with the savviness of new mediums like YouTube and Instagram that drew people in. Definitely. I had to put it out on the Internet every day and hope that it caught on. At first I wasnt thinking about going viral. I wanted people to hear me rapping because thats what I like to do. I already had a big following in high school and college. One day, in 2013, my best friends and I made a twerk video, and it went viral at the school. One of our teachers called us into a meeting, and she pulled up the video on a projector and lectured us. She was like, Is this how you want to be represented? And we looked at each other, like, Yeah!

When I was in high school, I wanted that life to be completely different than my Megan Thee Stallion life, but I couldnt hide it. I was always Thee Stallion, so Ive always been making videos as me. I was shooting videos like every week. My classmates would ask me for pictures. I refused to get an Instagram at first. And then like everybody in high school was on Instagram, so I was like, [big dramatic sigh] Guess Ill get it.

It worked out youre really good at Instagram! Im not even trying. I dont like my Instagram to look like its a commercial. I want you to come to my page and feel like Im still your classmate. I do post when Im taking a quiz because I want my Hotties to know Im still going to school. I want people to look at my page and think, This is real life.

It seems as if you have a good sense of personal boundaries. I know you have alter egos that you step into when you perform. Do they help with that? Those are mostly for my music. In my real life, theres only two of me in my head: Megan and Megan Thee Stallion. Megan is the nerd who wants to watch anime, stay in bed and crack jokes with everyone. Megan Thee Stallion is when I have to perform. My alter egos are my emotions. Tina Snow is when Im feeling confident. Shes based on Tony Snow, Pimp Cs alias. And right now Im doing Suga shes sweet and vulnerable. Shes me telling people its OK to mess up.

How are you thinking about your legacy? You recently filed to trademark Hot Girl Summer. Most artists have difficulty trademarking their original ideas. Getting something trademarked is a long process. But Hot Girl Summer is my thing, its not like LeBron trying to get Taco Tuesday. I saw other companies were using it, and I was like, Thank you for your support, but I have to secure this, because this is mine.

Arielle Bobb-Willis for The New York Times

I think the duality that you possess a person who can be seen in a string bikini, drinking Hennessy on a yacht one day and host a beach cleanup the next empowered a lot of women to realize they can also be multiple selves online and off. Hot Girl Summer isnt about being reckless; its about leaning into all of the parts of yourself. It has been a whole two seasons since the song came out last August. How do you reflect on that period? I dont think you could think about summer without thinking about Hot Girl Summer. The whole Hot Girl aesthetic I think people felt comfortable seeing someone doing whatever they wanted to do. Thats why a lot of women appreciated it. This year, Im working to show people what being a hot girl really is like. Do you know what a candy striper is? Eventually, I want to open an assisted-living facility in Houston, but before that, I want to get girls together to go to different homes or hospitals. Those people dont have anybody, and I think itd be really cute to have a Hot Girl come visit you and volunteer.

All my life Ive been a person whos had my hands in a lot of things. I was a bill collector at one point. I was a bartender. When I started rapping and making money, I was like, Im going to use this to do the things I really want to do: Finish school and start my business. I know Im going to be an artist, and Im going do something in the medical field. I dont want to look up and be 40, and be like, Damn, I wish I wouldve done that.

Jenna Wortham is a staff writer for the magazine and co-host of the podcast Still Processing. She previously wrote about a reboot of the show The L Word for a Screenland column. Arielle Bobb-Willis is a photographer from New York who was recently featured in Apertures The New Black Vanguard. This is her first assignment for the magazine.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Stylist: E.J. King. Hair: Kellon Williams.

Additional design and development by Jacky Myint.

Read the rest here:
How Megan Thee Stallion Turned 'Hot' Into a State of Mind - The New York Times