(August 9, 2023). At the root of the argument that led to Megan Thee Stallion being shot by fellow rapper/singer Tory Lanez from inside a motor vehicle in July 2020–according to reports—was which rapper’s career was doing better.
After initially arguing that night about the fact that Lanez had been romantically involved with both Megan and another car passenger—her friend and former assistant Kelsey Harris—the confrontation turned to each rapper trolling the other about their respective careers, with Megan—whose star at that point was on a much higher trajectory—apparently getting the better of her verbal sparring partner that night.
This apparently led to Megan exiting the vehicle before Lanez took shots at her feet from within the car, allegedly shouting the command “dance, bitch!” as Megan dodged his bullets.
While Lanez has had a pretty good career with seven Billboard top-10 albums and ten Hot 100 singles (including five as a featured artist), plus millions of social media followers, Megan’s success, arguably, has been greater…particularly in recent years.
None of Lanez’ singles have peaked above No. 19 on the Hot 100 and only two have even made the top 40, whereas Megan has enjoyed two No. 1 hits—“Savage” (with Beyoncé) and “WAP” (with Cardi B), both in 2020–along with a half-dozen other top-20 entries since 2018.
In addition, Megan’s superstar status was cemented when she hosted SNL in 2022, with a hot-girl-worthy opening monologue and some of the most fan-approved, critically acclaimed sketches in recent memory—skits that showcased her versatility as an actress and all-around entertainer.
In fact, much of Megan’s rise to superstardom occurred after the July 2020 shooting. It was the following month that “WAP” became a cultural phenomenon and the most talked-about “pussy-rap” this side of Lil Kim’s 1996 classic “Big Momma Thang.” It topped the Billboard Hot 100 and became the first No. 1 on the worldwide Billboard Global 200, which launched that month and tracks combined streaming and sales activity across the globe.
She’s also had two full-length albums—Good News and Traumazine—that reached the top-five on the Billboard 200 in the last three years, and she’s made at least a dozen Hot 100 singles chart appearances since the shooting.
But it’s the femcee’s career that stands to take a bigger plunge in the wake of Lanez’ sentencing Tuesday (Aug. 8) to ten years in prison for shooting his former friend.
And that’s not just because Megan has a higher rung from which to fall career-wise than her male assailant.
It has more to do with hip-hop culture, one that is full of elements that don’t favor a female rapper whose testimony—and, more pointedly, her willingness to testify—just sent one of its own to jail for ten years, despite how brazen and caught-red-handed his crime appeared to be.
For the unenlightened, there are only two things in hip-hop culture worse than having lame beats or rhymes, and that’s: 1) being punked by a woman (if you’re a male); and 2) being accused of “snitching” (if you’re anybody…just ask rappers named Gunna and Tekashi 6ix9ine).
Rappers are more likely to be derided on social media (or worse in Tekashi’s case…suffering a humiliating beatdown in a gym) for cooperating with law enforcement than they are for having a poor-quality album.
Even with all of its braggadocio and internal beefs, hip-hop is the ultimate in protect-our-own culture, where “our own” in this case is usually the male in any male-female conflict, especially when it comes to celebrity rappers who’ve been accused of violent crimes.
Case in point: before his conviction and sentencing, it was more probable that you’d see “Free Tory Lanez” hashtags than you would a “Protect Megan Thee Stallion” slogan anywhere, especially on social media. (For evidence: type the word “free” in your Twitter search engine to see what tops the results list, then do the same for any variation of the words “protect Megan Thee Stallion.”)
After Megan—whose legal name is Megan Pete—finally went public with the fact that she’d been shot (about a month after it happened) and that it was at the hands of Lanez, she was essentially called a liar, made a villain and even became the target of “I’d have shot that b**** too” sentiment online.
To be fair, some people came to Megan’s defense, or at least criticized Lanez for his role in the shooting. That month, after Megan went public, popular hip-hop radio personality Charlemagne Tha God named Lanez “Donkey of the Day” on his show The Breakfast Club.
But much of the sentiment expressed online and in hip-hop circles was in Lanez’ camp as the “Jerry Sprunger” rapper steadfastly denied that he had anything to do with Megan’s shooting, even going so far as to release an album in September 2020 bearing his legal first name, Daystar, the entirety of which contained lyrics denying he shot the “Savage” singer while questioning her motive for saying it was him, and accusing the media (and “Megan’s people”) of painting him as a menace.
But despite the he-said/she-said aspects of this case, how the victim and key witnesses reportedly responded to the initial inquiries by police—both on the scene and in the days and weeks afterwards—centered on this issue of snitching, especially as it involves the potential criminalization of rappers in particular and Black people in general, many of whom already have a healthy distrust of law enforcement—for valid reasons—in this country.
There were two key examples of where the issue of snitching played out and had implications for the case’s outcome.
The first involved key witness Kelsey Harris, who was central to the fight between Lanez and Megan that night, and whose testimony at the December 2022 trial was riddled with Fifth Amendment pleas and “I don’t recall” answers. She ultimately received immunity for her testimony, but still played the “No-Snitch” card, even as prosecutors played back recordings of her earlier deposition and a text message she sent within minutes of the shooting, implicating Lanez.
Of note, the recipient of that text—another key witness—“went missing” in the hours before he was due in court to testify for the prosecution, but later surfaced (after the fact).
And then there was Megan herself, who didn’t initially report the shooting or attribute it to Lanez when officers responded to the scene following a 911 call made by a neighbor about the loud disturbance caused by the altercation.
When asked at trial why she didn’t initially report the shooting—she’d attributed the blood on her feet to having stepped on glass—Megan asserted that she wanted to protect everyone involved, especially in the wake of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor earlier that year.
“This was at the height of police brutality… I felt like if I said this man just shot me, I didn’t know if they might shoot first and ask questions later,” she testified. She also noted how “in the Black community… it’s not really acceptable to be cooperating with police officers.”
Megan said her reasoning was two-fold because, as a woman in the music industry, “people have a hard time believing you anyway.”
To her point, the issue of “snitching” wasn’t the only one that surfaced during the three years this case has been in headlines.
Aside from that and the misogyny already pervasive in rap, but which played out here with many people attacking Megan’s character for merely having had a relationship with Lanez, there were also issues of trust with law enforcement, legitimacy of testimony, use of forensics and DNA, fairness in sentencing, the treatment of Blacks in the criminal justice system, and even politics.
The conservative right-wing has accused the “woke” Los Angeles D.A. of throwing the book at the high-profile Lanez to shield himself from criticism of being too light on crime in his district, where people guilty of more violent offenses have allegedly served lesser sentences.
But mostly, this case has been about the protection of women, namely Black women.
It’s sad to say, but the only way that people likely would have rallied more around Megan than Tory in this case is if Tory had been white or donning a police uniform when he shot her.
Indeed, in hip-hop culture, male rappers have famously treated being shot like a badge of honor (see rapper 50 Cent in 2003). The same apparently doesn’t work for women, especially if the perpetrator is male.
Megan’s shooting made her a pariah, particularly after she called out her assailant (note: when Tupac Shakur famously did the same to the Bad Boy camp in 1995 after he survived his first gunning, his stock only went up).
Now, with the sentencing of Lanez, age 31, who still has more Spotify monthly listeners—23.5 million—than Megan (22.2 million), the question is not only how this will impact his career (Lanez will likely be in his early 40s when he gets out, barring early parole), but how it will affect hers.
Megan has been very public about the toll this case has taken on her both physically (she is reportedly working through numbness in her left foot) and mentally (she’s expressed ideation associated with suicide by expressing that she wished Lanez had just killed her rather than subject her to three years of torture with his denials and character assassinations, followed by that of the media and even those in the rap community).
But central to Megan’s career has been her “I’m that bitch” persona, which in hip-hop means you must appear to be a strong woman and can’t play the victim card under any circumstances, even those where you clearly were one.
Megan Thee Stallion, 28, is aware of that dichotomy. How she navigates it as she continues her still-young musical career will be key to not only how well she recovers from this trauma, but how much the hip-hop community allows her to.
But even if the hits don’t come as fast and furious as they once had in the wake of Lanez’ sentencing, at least Megan can hopefully sleep a little better knowing that the justice system worked in her favor, and that she has given a voice to female victims everywhere who’ve been afraid in the past to speak out against their known assailants.
Even if it means being labeled that “S” word that rhymes with bitch.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him/his), who believes in the mantra “if you see something, say something,” is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Twitter at @djrobblog and on Meta’s Threads.
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