“I want to start off by saying Hotties for Harris!” Megan Thee Stallion announced as she took the stage at the Georgia State Convocation Center in Atlanta.
The three-time Grammy winner was there to perform at Vice President Kamala Harris’s first campaign rally in the city as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Naturally, Megan wore a bright blue pantsuit fit for a Hottie – complete with a cropped blazer and button down, skin-tight bottoms, and a necktie to match. She took care to sensor her tracks and keep the twerking modest as she and a crew of dancers burst into “Girls in the Hood,” her 2020 flip of an Eazy-E classic.
As she performed her viral hit “Mamushi,” the crowd sang along, but soon, the real reason she was there emerged as she transitioned into “Body.”
“Now I know my ladies in the crowd love their bodies,” she said fresh out of the Mamushi dance break. “And you want to keep loving your body — you know who to vote for!” As she performed the “Savage” remix, she told the crowd that “real savages” vote.
“I’m so happy to be here Atlanta! We’re about to make history with the first female president,” the artist declared. “The first Black female president! Let’s get this done!”
Megan is no stranger to advocacy. In 2021, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who died on July 19, presented Megan with a Humanitarian Award from their district. When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, she called out the decision while performing at Glastonbury Festival in the U.K, and led the crowd in a chant of “My body, my motherfucking choice,” echoing a lyric in her 2022 song “Gift & A Curse.”
The rapper has continued to highlight the line on the road, giving it a standout moment at Washington D.C.’s Broccoli City Festival on Sunday, just two days before the rally.
In 2020, when she made her Saturday Night Live debut as a musical guest, Megan spotlighted the killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black emergency medical technician in Kentucky who was shot by police when plainclothes officers executed a no-knock warrant at her home obtained with a falsified affidavit. A backdrop for Megan’s performance at the time read “Protect Black Women” and she used vocal clips of activist Tamika Mallory condemning Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s management of the case. It also included a portion of a famous 1962 speech by Malcolm X, in which the civil rights leader says: “The most disrespected, unprotected, neglected person in America is the Black woman.”
Soon after that Saturday Night Live performance, she published an op-ed in the New York Times titled “Why I Speak Up for Black Women.” In it, she connected the Tory Lanez shooting she suffered to other instances of misogyny in acts of violence, as well as health care, pop culture, and politics. “I’m not afraid of criticism,” she wrote. “We live in a country where we have the freedom to criticize elected officials. And it’s ridiculous that some people think the simple phrase ‘Protect Black women’ is controversial.”
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
