The Houston rapper performed a few of her most acclaimed tracks of the year.
Straight from a rodeo, Megan Thee Stallion celebrated winning Apple Music’s Breakout Artist of the Year by sharing renditions of her most popular tracks of 2020. She kicked off the set with “Realer,” a biting song produced by LilJuMadeDaBeat. This set the stage for the high energy performances that followed.
“Girls in the Hood,” her first single off of her recently released debut album Good News came next. Megan was joined by a crew of dancers for this song. Her natural stage presence became quite evident here.
The Houston artist also spoke a bit about her roots in Texas, growing up aspiring to be a nurse and reinventing herself as a rapper at Texas Southern University. In an interview between performances, she shared that she didn’t go after her dreams of being an artist until college. “It’s not that I wasn’t confident in myself with rapping, I always knew that I could rap,” she said. “But it was like, I wasn’t seeing it happen in regular, everyday life that women are just female rappers besides my mom.”
The level of aggression Megan brought to “Cash Shit” was a high point of her set. This song is arguably a fan favorite. Once again she’s joined by dancers who add to the performance.
Further along in her set the rapper’s rendition of “Don’t Stop” appears. The eccentric track with blaring sounds throughout is a perfect segway to Megan speaking about how she ignores naysayers and negativity. On this, she shares, “Sometimes I feel like people try to make women be cookie cutters: this is how you should talk, this is how you should act. Be seen, not heard.”
When touching on how she got her self-confidence, “Because the women in my life gave me so many compliments and made me feel special and beautiful and loved as a child, that’s how I feel as a grown woman.” She adds, “I am beautiful, I am smart and my body is perfect the way it is because this is what I grew up thinking anyway.”
To close out, Megan performs “Savage,” alongside “WAP,” this track is one of the most acclaimed rap songs of 2020. The choreography during this portion of her set pays homage to dancers at HBCUs and it’s a fitting nod. Megan is the lead dancer and the crew of performers follows her lead. “Body,” another standout from Megan Thee Stallion this year, closes out her Apple Music Breakout Artist of the Year performance.
This entire set drives the point home that her stage presence and vocal prowess place her above any male rapper that you think had a better year than her. 2020 was Megan Thee Stallion’s year, period.
Watch the performance below.