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The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards were, undeniably, Megan Thee Stallions night. At the outdoor Los Angeles ceremony, the 26-year-old Houstonian stunned with a tangerine Dolce & Gabbana dressbow, thigh slit,... Read more

Stormy Weather , was the exclamation point to a stellar performance. By far, the defining moment of the night was the ensuing transgression of every Federal Communications Commission regulation on the books: Megans primetime debut of WAP with Cardi B. While the lyrics were heavily censored (Yeah, youre dealin with some wet, wet, wet), the visuals pulled no punches. The duo rapped under a giant Pleaser shoethe heel of which doubled as a stripper polebefore rolling around together on a (truly) King-size bed. No set, it seemed, could be too big to match the No. 1 hits momentous success. Megan Thee Stallion is no stranger to spectacle, consistently upping the caliber of her performances in spite of pandemic limitations. Yet Megan always brings more than just budget and scale, gracing the SNL stage with PROTECT BLACK WOMEN emblazoned in the background and declaring love for her physique at the AMAs. Given her 2020 assault by Tory Lanez and the relentless critiques of her body online, these messages of self-love, sexual freedom, and power are more than upliftingtheyre a reclamation of her narrative. On stage, Megan is an unflinching mix of confidence and poise; off stage, she effortlessly charms with her levity and authenticity. Upon winning each Grammy over the course of the night, she was rendered genuinely speechless, mouth agape and frozen to her seat. Megans nerves appeared to reach a peak when she was escorted on stage by her personal hero, Beyonc, to accept their joint Best Rap Song win for Savage. If you know me, you have to know that ever since I was little, I was like, You know what? One day, Im going to grow up and Im going to be, like, , Megan said, flustered and excitedly laughing. But the Recording Academy stumbled just when it mattered most: the top prize of the night, Record of the Year. Billie Eilish, despite having a comparatively middling year, beat out Megan Thee Stallion (not to mention Beyonc, Doja Cat, and Dua Lipa) with Everything I Wanted. This is really embarrassing for me, said Eilish, herself a seven-time Grammy winner. Megan, girl. I was gonna write a speech about how you deserve this, but then I was like, Theres no way theyre going to choose me. Eilish rambled through a spontaneous version of that speech anyway, asking the sparse audience of stars to applaud for Megan. This awkward affair was only the latest instance of a white artist apologizing to a Black artist more deserving of their Grammy winin 2017, notably, Adele used her acceptance speech for Album of the Year to praise Beyonc. But Megan doesnt need pity claps from her peers. Her success speaks for itself. As Megan says on her now two-time Grammy-winning song Savage: Im that bitch / Been that bitch, still that bitch / Will forever be that bitch. Megans meteoric yeardominating charts, TikTok, and the cultural consciousnessverifies that statement. If the Recording Academy is too shortsighted to recognize that 2020 belonged utterly to Megan Thee Stallion, thats no ones problem but their own. Abby is a senior in the college, studying English. She enjoys sharing her opinions on film and talking about her twenty-hour-long K-pop playlist. She is currently a Contributing Editor. More: Read more