Despite earning numerous accolades since her debut, including three Grammy wins and global chart-topping hits such as “Savage,” rap sensation Megan Thee Stallion, born Megan Pete, has had to confront public ridicule and misogynoir.

Last year, rapper Tory Lanez was sentenced to 10 years in jail for shooting and injuring Pete in July 2020. She faced endless hateful comments and harassment online not only from Lanez, his fans and others in the music industry. For example, rapper Drake in his 2022 song “Four Loko” with 21 Savage raps “this b**** lie ‘bout gettin’ shots, but she still a stallion, She don’t even get the joke, but she still smilin’.”

Lanez opened his 2020 album “Daystar” with a media montage of others talking about the shooting, angering numerous people including the “Hotties,” the nickname for Megan Thee Stallion’s supporters.

“I wish he had just shot and killed me if I had to go through this torture,” Pete testified in Dec. 2022 about the emotional damage that the shooting caused her. Through her music, Pete has been able to share her struggles with the shooting and her overall health.

In her latest single “Cobra,” dropped on Nov. 3, rap artist Megan Thee Stallion delves into her current mental state, marking her first release as an independent artist. Through raw lyricism, Pete offers a platform for fellow Black women to shatter societal expectations of unyielding strength, resonating strongly with her fan base.

Writer and editor Taylor Crumpton, who has been a day one Hottie, speaks about how Megan Thee Stallion’s strength despite what she has been through.

“There’s something about Megan that is so emblematic of the generation of girls in Texas that I grew up in where we were raised with this Southern sweetheart,” Crumpton said, referencing the manners and respect for elders Texan girls are raised with. However, “our generation is also like, you can’t tell me s***, so there’s also a bite. Almost like a hot honey. I think seeing that on a stage such as music, hip hop and black woman in hip hop, I just automatically found a kinship,” she said.

Megan Thee Stallion vs. Hate

The misogynoir and mistreatment Pete has experienced in the rap world isn’t new. Artists from Lil Kim to Rihanna have been victims of a system that protects the men in hip-hop and not the women, Dominique Fluker wrote in a 2022 USC Annenberg Media article.

In a 2020 tweet, Pete said that “Black women are so unprotected & we hold so many things in to protect the feelings of others w/o considering our own. It might be funny to y’all on the internet and just another messy topic for you to talk about but this is my real life and I’m real life hurt and traumatized.”

Riché Richardson, African American literature professor at Cornell University, emphasizes the importance of listening to Black women.

“I believe it is important to take seriously concerns such as Black women and domestic violence and not attempt to downplay the pain that some experience. We need a culture invested in promoting the well being of Black women and girls alongside Black men and boys, one invested in accountability and healing for everyone,” Richardson said.

Cobras, according to an Instagram post from Pete, “exemplify courage and self-reliance. They stand tall and fierce in the face of challenges, teaching one to tap into their inner strength and rely on oneself to conquer their threats.”

The lyrics and vulnerability that Pete showed in the song has changed lives, like X user sadhotgirI.

In the song, Pete discusses her depression, rapping that “at night, I’m sittin’ in a dark room thinkin’ Probably why I always end up drinkin’, Yes, I’m very depressed, How can somebody so blessed wanna slit they wrist?”

She also talks about her lack of support but power to move forward, saying that “I was trippin’, goin’ crazy, And they lowkey hatin’, so they ain’t gon’ say s***, D***, I finally see it, I’m killin’ myself when b****** would die to be me.”

The “strong Black woman” stereotype

As someone who studies Megan Thee Stallion, Crumpton said that this isn’t the first time that Pete has brought up her mental health.

“When you peel back all of the layers that is Megan, because I think a lot of times people only focus on her sexuality, her sexual prowess, her body. She is such an eloquent wordsmith in articulating what it means to be a young Black woman with a functional depression, battling anxiety, impostor syndrome, sizeism and colorism,” Crumpton said, mentioning how singer Tina Turner also turned to rock to help express their anger and other powerful emotions.

Black women, including those in a public spotlight, are often placed into a “strong Black woman” stereotype, studies have shown. They are defined as a Black woman “who overcomes all obstacles, remains strong despite problems, and sacrifices herself for others,” Cynthia Nicole White wrote in her 2021 study on the topic.

However, Black women are struggling regardless of the societal expectations placed on them. Some Black women who were aware of the “strong Black woman” stereotype had negative eating habits, such as binge eating, according to a 2022 study by Dawn Godbolt, Ijeoma Opara, and Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha.

In addition, “both moderate and high levels of SBW endorsement increase the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms, while low levels of SBW endorsement do not,” according to a 2015 Journal of Black Psychology study examining the relationship between the SBW stereotype and mental health.

According to Richardson, there has always been an expectation for Black women to be strong and have everything together.

“Like everyone, Black women are all too human. Conventionally, like all women, Black women have faced tremendous pressures to try to ‘have it all’ so to speak, and work very hard, while sometimes neglecting their personal needs,” Richardson said, stating that Black women even with high achievements can have their own struggles, like Whitney Houston.

Through her song “Cobra,” Pete shares her own trials and tribulations, showing it’s ok to not be strong all the time in a world that requires it of Black women, digital creator Marquise Richards said.

“The community also does not know how to process a broken Black woman, because they tend to heal in private or with other women. To see a Black woman be imperfect in the public eye feels jarring, because most of us do not want to see them like that,” said Richardson, who says she was policed on her grief when her grandmother and mother passed away. “Megan has found strength in that vulnerability and gave permission for Black women (specifically in rap) to put more of this music in the forefront,” he said.

In a Nov. 5 Instagram post from Pete, she shares that cobras also “embody the art of healing and renewal. They gracefully shed their skins in hopes to heal from their past and during the process are very vulnerable. We, too, can gracefully let go of the past and focus on being the baddest hotties we can be.”

Time will tell if true reform will come in how Black women are treated and represented in the media. Regardless, Pete is only in “Act One” of a musical era that is making Black women and her fans feel seen and validated.