Megan Thee Stallion brought some serious heat to the 2020 Apple Music Awards on Monday (Dec. 14). The rapper, who was honored with the breakthrough artist of the year award, performed not one, not two, but six songs for her Hotties.
“It’s super important for me to perform for the Apple Music Awards because these songs touch my Hotties,” she said in a voiceover at the beginning of her taped set. “Everything I do is for you all.”
The performance kicked off with cowboys riding into an open-air dirt-floor stadium in dim light. The floor of the stadium then lights up in flames as a stallion rears up on its hind legs, and the screen flashes to a fierce-looking Megan who is decked out in gold — her outfit consisting of a cowboy hat, bustier, chaps, cape and gloves — as she launches into “Realer” off of Realer.
She followed the fiery kick-off to her performance with “Girls in the Hood,” off her debut studio album Good News, which was released in November. At the end of the song, Megan explained that growing up, she didn’t know what she wanted her career to be, and how she ended up becoming a rapper.
“I’m writing the whole time, like, I’m rapping the whole time. So I’m like, ‘Damn, what am I gonna do with my life? I’ll be a nurse. And they’re gonna be so happy when they meet Nurse Megan. We the best goddamn nurse there ever was!” explained the artist. “It’s not that I wasn’t confident in myself with rapping because I always knew that I could rap. But it was like I’m not seeing it happen in regular everyday life that women were just female rappers besides my mom.”
Things changed when she went to college. Megan shared that she wasn’t happy that no one at school had any idea about her musical talents. “When we go to college, you can reinvent yourself, be whatever you want to be. These people don’t know you!” she shared. “So I came to school like, ‘I’m staying.’ I’m, like, at parties rapping; I’m outside the dorm rapping. Everybody know me at school as the Stallion, and she rap. And boom, this is my life now.”
The performance then continued with “Cash $h-t,” another song off her 2019 mixtape, before moving on to “Don’t Stop,” also off her debut LP. When the song ended, Megan again took the opportunity to address viewers, this time about her perseverance.
“No matter how many times somebody questioned why I’m rapping, the way I rap, I never gave up because of course you’re gonna hear a lot of no’s. But I never let the no’s get me down. I was like, ‘How can I turn those no’s into ‘hell yeses?'” she said, sharing how her crowds at community college performances kept growing and growing.
The rapper also addressed body positivity and how women are treated. “Because the women in my life gave me so many compliments that made me feel special and beautiful and loved as a child, that’s how I feel as a grown woman,” she explained. “I am beautiful, and I am smart, and my body is perfect the way it is because this is what I grew up thinking anyway. A lot of people don’t feel super comfortable with their bodies … when the whole time, you’ve been beautiful, you’ve been perfect!”
The artist then performed “Savage” before ending her nearly 21-minute performance with “Body.” Watch her entire set below:
