Megan Thee Stallion Songs and Their Influence on Female Empowerment Conversations

Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion has been in the limelight for just under a decade, but she has established herself as one of hip-hop's top-selling artists. She is a cultural phenomenon keen on redefining female empowerment through music. On the surface, her songs might simply seem like catchy "girl power" anthems with clever lyrics and stunning videos. However, the GRAMMY-winning rapper is challenging traditional expectations of womanhood like no other female artist in hip-hop today. In this article, we examine Megan Thee Stallion's songs and their impact on conversations about female confidence and autonomy.

"Hot girl" is a term that was made popular by the New Orleans rap group The Hot Boys on their 1999 single "I Need a Hot Girl." However, Megan has transformed it from its reductive usage by male rappers into a powerful lexicon for female empowerment. Her female-centric rhetoric around hot girl has grown into a movement that eschews respectability politics while emphasizing authentic self-expression.

Through catchphrases she has created, such as "hot girl shit" and "hot girl summer," Megan galvanizes her fans to challenge ideologies that are oppressive to women and invites them to defy established norms of womanhood.

On her X account, the rapper has stressed the importance of self-representation, stating "real hot girl s**t=being free and unapologetically you, showing off your confidence, hyping up your friends, not taking s**t from nobody etc." In another post a few months later, she argued that "Being a Hot Girl is about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident, living YOUR truth, being the life of the party etc."

In her social media posts, Megan explains her principles of hot girl-ness as being free, confident, unapologetic, and seeking joy. However, she also leaves space for women to self-define what it means to be a hot girl by incorporating "etc." at the end of her posts.

Megan's work is notably significant in challenging respectability politics norms. Since the late 19th century, women, especially Black women, have had their self-expression curtailed by unidimensional readings of womanhood. However, through her music, Megan has challenged historic and contemporary definitions of Black womanhood, encouraging women to defy respectability politics.

Her hot girl rhetoric disrupts the respectability vs. ratchet dichotomy lens through which Black womanhood has historically been viewed. It aligns with feminist scholar Brittney Cooper's concept of "disrespectability politics." Cooper's idea of disrespectability politics references practices and routines that women can integrate into their daily lives to push back against constructions of womanhood and assert their presence. These may include wearing whatever hairstyle you feel most comfortable in, dressing in a way that embodies your personality regardless of the environment you're in, and owning your sexual narrative.

Megan's four principles of hot girlhood are evident throughout her oeuvre. Many of her songs not only stress the need for personal freedom but also encourage women to aspire to confidence and authenticity.

Through her music, Megan champions the rights of women to make their own choices without judgment. Her 2020 single "Girls in the Hood" best exemplifies the utility of the hot girl rhetoric in the pursuit of freedom. The song samples Eazy E's 1987 single "Boyz-n-the-Hood." Megan riffs off the N.W.A. rapper's flow, showcasing how hot girls talk their smack.

"'Cause the girls in the hood are always hard… Knowin' nothin' in life, but I gotta get rich," she raps. Through her reimagination of this braggadocious rap anthem, Megan sends an empowering message to women from the hood who suffer the greatest marginalization.

Megan also encourages women to celebrate their bodies. In her 2020 smash hit "Body," she flaunts her sex appeal. "I'm a hot ebony, they gon click it if it's me" she raps. She also challenges unrealistic female beauty standards, asserting, "Body crazy, curvy, wavy, big t***ies, lil' waist." The song sparked the viral "Body" TikTok dance challenge, with the hashtag #bodychallenge receiving 707 million views.

Megan's dual focus on music and education proves that confidence can come from multiple sources. On Dec. 11, 2021, she graduated from Texas Southern University with a degree in health administration. This academic success proves that women don't need to sacrifice their education for pursuits in the arts or vice versa.

Megan Thee Stallion's hot girl rhetoric has led to the rise of what she terms the "hot girl diaspora." These are interpretative communities formed through hashtags, music, and social media engagement.

Her 2020 hit, "Savage," spawned the viral "Savage Challenge," which allowed women to embrace their complexities while claiming to be "classy," "bougie," and "ratchet" simultaneously. The choreography for the challenge was created by TikTok user Keara Wilson (@keke.janajah), who posted it on March 10 and promoted it for five consecutive days.

The #SavageChallenge became the seventh most-used TikTok sound of all time with over 50 million creations and 10 billion total TikTok views. Among the celebrities who hopped onto the challenge were Charli D'Amelio, Addison Rae, Hailey and Justin Bieber, and Janet Jackson.

Besides championing female authentic self-expression, Megan has emerged as a strong advocate for mental health. She has opened up about her personal struggles, including the infamous July 2020 shooting that she was a victim of.

While attempting to leave a party in Los Angeles, she was shot twice in the foot by Canadian rapper Tory Lanez. Despite facing judgment and public skepticism about her assault, she has continued to self-advocate and sparked broader conversations about gender-based violence.

Through opinion posts on The New York Times, she has addressed the prevalence of violence against gender nonconforming and transgender individuals. "Maternal mortality rates for Black mothers are about three times higher than those for white mothers, an obvious sign of racial bias in health care," she writes. "In 2019, an astronomical 91 percent of the transgender or gender-nonconforming people who were fatally shot were Black… Beyond threats to our health and lives, we confront so much judgment and so many conflicting messages on a daily basis," she adds.

In hip-hop, where women are portrayed through a male-centric lens, artists such as Megan are redefining female artistic representation. Through her music, she has created spaces for diverse representations of Black women in pop culture. Most importantly, she has demonstrated how we can all incorporate hot girl principles into our daily lives to become the most authentic versions of ourselves.