Megan Thee Stallion covers the latest issue of Billboard. Megan is riding high, now an independent artist who owns her own masters. She’s making the kind of music she wants to make, without a million label executives nitpicking her constantly. She’s also a political activist – she performed at Kamala Harris’s first rally in Atlanta, and Meg spends some time in this interview talking about how she’s thrilled to be able to vote for a Black woman for president. She also addresses some of the Nicki Minaj stuff – Meg’s “Hiss” was the first brick thrown in Diss Track Szn this year, and I maintain that most of that song was about Drake, not Nicki. But Meg wasn’t asked about Drizzy. Some highlights:

Her collabs with Nike, Popeyes & her own branded tequila: She even has her own tequila coming, Chicas Divertidas, which was inspired by a conversation with Beyoncé. “ ‘You better have your own s–t,’ ” Megan quips, imitating her fellow Houstonian. “You better know the next time she saw me, I said, ‘Hey, Beyoncé. Look what I got.’ I’m proud of all my business deals because everything I do is personal to me. I put 100% into my partnerships, and I’m always so grateful when people want to step into my world. When I see a brand I f–k with and they want to come into the Hot Girl World, I’m like, ‘Thank you, this makes sense. I love that you’re recognizing me as much as I was already recognizing you.’”

She considers Japan her second home: “When I’m out there, I always feel happy. The air is clear, the people are polite, the food is good. The culture is so interesting to me. I learn something every time I go out there. I learn a little bit of Japanese every time I go. The shopping is good. It just feels super positive every time I’m there. I really like being there because I’m big on energy. As soon as I touch down, I always feel like I can take a breath. Everybody good.”

On Nicki Minaj’s beef attempts: “I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. If people feel like I’m somebody to aim at, then I must be pretty high up if you’re reaching up at me. I must be some kind of competition. That makes me feel good. That makes me feel like I could rap because if I wasn’t the s–t, y’all wouldn’t be worried about me.”

More on Minaj: “I still to this day don’t know what the problem is. I don’t even know what could be reconciled because I, to this day, don’t know what the problem is.”

Whether she wants more support from Black men: “At this point in life, I really don’t care. Maybe if you would’ve asked me this last year or two years ago, I would’ve wished I had more Black people in general in my corner. It would’ve felt nice to be protected by some Black men in this instance, but the more I wasn’t getting it, the more and more I realized I wasn’t going to get it. Who should feel safe and important at the end of the day is me, and I was going to have to make myself feel that way. I wasn’t going to find it in people I don’t know at all. Now I don’t care. As long as I make myself feel happy, then that’s what matters to me.

She’s inspired by Kamala Harris: “To be alive in a lifetime where a Black woman or a woman at all could be the president, I feel so blessed. This is what the future is about. We really about to get a strong, Black female in there. I feel like America needed a woman to come in here and put a woman’s touch on it. It’s been going a little crazy lately, and we need somebody to put their foot down. I feel like Kamala, she gon’ do that.”

We could have a second Black president in less than ten years: “Yeah, in the same lifetime. We are really doing the damn thing. I’m proud of us. Now we just got to get out there and go vote. I don’t like it when I see people saying, “I’m not voting. F–k it.” What the f–k are you talking about? You’re going to complain about what you don’t like but you’re not going to help the cause? I think that’s very irresponsible because if you don’t like what Trump has going on, why even aid in him being the president again?

[From Billboard]

I wonder if those last comments were pointed or more general. I’m sure she’s heard from some people who think it’s cool to say “I’m not voting” or “but Kamala blah blah blah.” One of those people might even be Meg’s friend Cardi B. But I appreciate that Meg is just approaching this as a normie Dem, just really simple in her messaging: It’s exciting to get to vote for a Black woman, Kamala Harris is awesome, we should do everything we can to keep Trump away. I also love that Beyonce has been quietly mentoring Megan this whole time, helping her on the business side and advising her to own her own sh-t. The Minaj stuff… lmao, Meg’s handling it the right way. They ain’t mad at Megan, they mad at Megan’s Law.

Cover courtesy of Billboard, additional photos courtesy of Cover Images.