Megan Thee Stallion is busy.
In 2024 alone, the six-time Grammy Award-winning artist, born Megan Pete, has dropped not one but two albums, Megan and Megan: Act II, the latter of which was released just this past Friday. (They’re meant to be viewed as one work, though, with Act II functioning as the sort of “deluxe” complement.) She also hosted this year’s MTV Video Music Awards (after prior stints hosting Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon); she’ll be launching her own tequila brand, Chicas Divertidas, before 2025; and tomorrow, she celebrates the premiere of Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words, a documentary tracing the rapper’s often turbulent last few years.
Consider that Pete is doing all of this while flying solo, having departed her former record label in 2023 (after she sued it for fraud and breach of contract). It’s a bit like her stallion has transformed into a Pegasus—and she’s relishing these new heights.
“I have the freedom to say whatever I want to say and put something out whenever I feel like it,” says Pete on a call from New York last week. She was in town to appear, once again, on Fallon’s show, and to promote her new ad campaign for the denim brand True Religion.
“That’s why I was able to even put out two projects in one year… I literally can just wake up and decide to do it again tomorrow.” (To note, Pete’s current music contracting has a unique architecture: She releases music independently, yet works collaboratively with Warner Music Group on distribution—with the artist retaining ownership and control of her masters and publishing.) Yet there’s often a con against the pro: “The other side is that I really am now my own boss, so I have to worry about the business side and the artist side,” she acknowledges, her tone changing. “I’m still kind of navigating my way through [that]. I’ve always considered myself a boss, but now I’m really in the boss seat.”
The joy that Pete is taking in this moment—in her energy and productivity—recalls a scene from In Her Words, when she’s discussing the early days, back in her hometown of Houston, of developing her nom de plume: “That was when I was my happiest,” she says. Now, Pete is getting to amplify her invention. For example, 0n Megan: Act II, she flexes her range and artistry like never before. Among the highlights is “Fell In Love,” with its hook-y ’90s bounce (“There was no way I was not going to put that beat out into the world,” she remarks). It also has “TYG” with Spiritbox, a Canadian heavy metal band; and there’s a remix of her summer hit “Mamushi” with Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba, now featuring TWICE, the South Korean girl group. (A mamushi is a pit viper, following Pete’s penchant for serpentine thematics; prior tracks include “BOA” and “Cobra.”) Taken with Megan, Megan: Act II is the start of a new sonic chapter, and a testament to Pete’s emboldened creative confidence.
On the other hand, In Her Words, directed by Nneka Onuorah, feels like a bid for closure, covering some of the more trying moments in Pete’s recent past—from losing her mother, Holly Thomas, in 2019, to being shot by rapper Tory Lanez in 2020. Earlier that year, just as the pandemic was beginning, Pete’s “Savage” had exploded on TikTok, sending her star skyrocketing. All of it—the grief, the trauma, the fast and furious fame—took a toll.
“I’m kind of supposed to be above the criticism and the haters and the trolls and whatever, but I’m, like, a regular human being,” Pete says during our call. In Her Words cedes space to the person behind the swaggering stage persona: “You may have seen me at a show, but you’ll be surprised at what was really going on.”
But that was then: Now that she’s assumed the “boss seat,” she is putting the full force of her influence behind the projects and the causes that she believes in, from the launch of Chicas Divertidas (“I’ve been working on it for a couple of years now—I’m excited for the hotties to see how smooth it is”) to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign (“I just want the hotties to know, if you’re not registered to vote, I don’t know what you got going on but I need you to get out there and do what’s right. Follow what you know in your heart is the right thing to do. Go vote if you want to see a change”).
Viewers of the documentary will notice custom anime panels spliced in with the film’s footage. This was something else that Pete, a known fan of the genre, felt passionately about. “I really love the storytelling in anime,” she says. “I really like how you get to see a character go from his or her lowest self to being his or her most badass self. In my documentary, I wanted my fans to feel like they went on that kind of same journey with me. Like you get to see me at my lowest. You get to see me try, get knocked down a few times, but ultimately never give up.”
Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words is available to stream on Prime Video from October 31, 2024.