Why Megan Thee Stallion Hid Her Rapping Aspirations From Her Mom
Before Megan was “Megan Thee Stallion” she was a 7-year-old with aspirations to be a rapper, inspired by watching music videos with late mother Holly. Holly was also a rapper, and Meg decided to hide her dream from her mom.
“I wanted to be perfect to her,” she told supermodel Tyra Banks in a hot tub interview. “I was practicing since I was, like, 7. And then when I got in high school, I was like, ‘No, I’m not gonna tell her yet.’ But she would have these CDs laying around the house — like, instrumentals — and I would take ’em in my room, and I would take the beats and write to ’em in my room. And she would say, ‘Megan, have you seen my CDs?’ And I was like, ‘No. What are you talking about?'”
Megan’s mother Holly Thomas, who went by the rap name “Holly-Wood”, died in March 2019 after being diagnosed with a brain tumor.
The “Savage” rapper took inspiration from watching music videos with her mom and emulating the dancers when she realized her real interest was in rapping.
“I would look at music videos, and I would see the girls in the videos, and I’m not even looking at the rapper,” she told Banks, “I’m looking at the girls in the videos. And I’m like, ‘Girl, look at her moving.’ So I’m in front of the TV. I’m in front of the TV like, ‘Yes! I could do this!’ And then I started figuring out, ‘No, wait, I want to talk. I want to be the person who is giving the call to action. I want to be the person who is saying these words.’ So I’m, like, I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up, but I knew I wanted to entertain everybody.”
At 19, while in college, Megan decided going to the studio, and she eventually decided that she wanted to tell her mother about her real career aspirations. But, Holly had some ground rules.
“So I finally came to her. I might have been 20, and I was like, ‘I can rap.’ And she was like, ‘No, you can’t.’ And I was like, ‘Yes, I can.’ And she was like, ‘Let me hear it,'” the now three-time Grammy winner recalled. “And I was like, ‘OK Mama, don’t whoop me, but I’m ’bout to curse, OK?’ So I started going off and I’m cursing and she’s like [gasps], ‘Where did you learn all those words?!’ …. And she said, ‘You’re not coming out until you’re 21.'”
Megan came out with her first single “Like a Stallion” and later released an EP titled Tina Snow, a nod to Megan’s alter ego, that helped her blow up into the phenomenon she is today. Megan now has three Grammy awards under her belt, a song with her icon Beyoncé, and a Sports Illustrated feature making her the first rapper to grace the cover.
