From Pimp C to Bun B to Queen Bey, a heavy Southern accent over a chopped and screwed beat is undeniably an iconic sound that started in H-town, but there is a community of millennial music artists ready to emerge in Houston. And while they are paying homage to the iconic sound in the past, the new generation of artists are including more popular techniques that are in today’s mainstream music and curating a new wave of Houston talent.

“I was definitely listening to Pimp C, and I was listening to Biggie—those are my favorite rappers, so my mom really put me on a lot of good music,” says 22-year-old rapper Megan Thee Stallion.

The Southside Houston rapper is in a lane of her own. While Travis Scott, Maxo Kream, and Trill Sammy race up the charts, there is a little to no coverage of female artists coming out of Houston. But despite the relative lack of attention, Megan has found a fanbase through social media, with over 150,000 followers across Twitter and Instagram. She also has 10,000 followers on SoundCloud where some of her music has racked up over 700,000 plays.

Currently, the “H-town Hottie” is gearing up to release her EP, Make It Hot, which, she tells Houstonia, will feature 7 tracks and is scheduled be out this Monday, Sept. 18, on “Megan Mondays.” 

Where did you get “Thee Stallion” from and your nickname “H-town hottie?”

Since I was younger, probably about 15 or 16, I've always had the same body. Older guys would always be like, Oh, you a stallion. So I finally had to ask like, is that a good thing? Everybody pretty much took it and ran with it, and then I put it as my main name on Twitter, and ever since then everybody's just been calling me Stallion. And the H-town hottie, that's just a nickname I gave for myself—I thought it sounded cool, so I was like, yeah, I'll be that.

What's your fan base like?

Honestly, everybody is pretty equal. Naturally, I have a lot of ladies. I would've thought I would've had a lot of men, but men are not running around saying my lyrics like that.

When I was listening to you old music I realized that now, you definitely seem more developed.

Back then I really didn't have a set producer, I just picked beats that I liked and would just get over them. But definitely, with this new project I have a management team now, and everyone's been more involved and I have a producer on my team now so this project is definitely working with a producer.

Setting deadlines for artists can be very complicated, so what was one challenge that you ran into creating this project?

Definitely the deadlines. I can write. I can write all day long, but I'm really picky about the way my music comes out and the way it sounds. If something was wrong in the mix or something was just not sounding right to me, I would just be like no we have to start all over, do it again. I'm pretty sure I was getting on some of my team's nerves.

What's your goal after this EP?

I'm definitely about to start shooting more videos. You'll be able to see more visuals from me. That's definitely my top goal right now, getting more visuals out.

What was your creative direction behind this EP? What's one thing you wanted to get out to your fans?

With the EP, I was thinking about how I have grown as an artist, which I've grown as a person since I've been writing this too. And you know I just really want everyone to feel comfortable in their own skin, and I want everybody to be them. I'm so outgoing, and I'm so cocky and confident in my music because I want other people to feel that way when they're listening to me. I want to make them feel happy to be them.