For so many of us, we all look forward to the weekend after a long and excruciating week at work, at school and sometimes doing other things that would take up our Monday to Friday lives. In a perfect world, the period from Friday afternoon until Sunday night would be when the entertainment industry unleashes its biggest content... but given the huge effect of the pandemic that's not the case for the movie industry or for the live events scene. But even without the usual array of live concerts, the show must go on for the music industry to give us some fresh content during these tough times, and they've provided us with plenty of comfort food in an otherwise dark start to this decade.
For years, it was a hodgepodge for when new music would be released around the world: those in Europe got first dibs on checking out new albums and singles from top artists on Mondays, a day before those across the Atlantic in North America would join in, and followed by other nations sometimes days later. But five years ago, the trade association that represents the global music industry decided to follow in their movie counterparts' steps and establish a uniform release day for new music releases on Friday. And for those in America and up in Canada, it's become a tradition for music fans here to stay up until midnight to stream new albums and watch new music videos premiere online when it's posted.
The pre-Thanksgiving New Music Friday last week saw the holidays arrive one week early in music land, headlined mega collaborations of Canadian megastars Justin Bieber & Shawn Mendes in "Monster" and Miley Cyrus & Dua Lipa in "Prisoner." The world's biggest boy band BTS returned with a new album Be, as its lead single "Life Goes On" offers a message of hope to their fandom known as the Army, and there were also new music videos that were just as juicy. Ariana Grande dropped the second clip from her new album entitled "34+35," while Grammy queen Billie Eilish brought us to the mall on "Therefore I Am." New songs by Jason Derulo, Sia, DaBaby, Meek Mill, Future, Chloe x Halle, Ava Max, French Montana, Kelly Rowland and Josh Groban rounded out a stellar lineup, providing a lead-in to last Sunday's American Music Awards.
While at Prairie View A&M, Megan began making waves when she uploaded videos of her freestyles on social media and one of those rap battles became viral, which kicked the wheels off of her rise to stardom. As she rapidly grew her following and by the time she got her diploma, she eventually adopted the name "Megan Thee Stallion" in reference to being like a horse while in high school due to her 5'10" height and her body frame, a large-boned endomorph.
In April 2016, Megan dropped her first single bearing her nickname, "Like A Stallion," which was also released as part of her first mixtape on SoundCloud. Along with two more extended plays, she would make her first professional solo debut on the more widely-available mixtape Make It Hot, with the single "Last Week in HTX" was the first achieve much YouTube success along with a freestyle rework of a track from XXXTentacion. An indie record deal and taking the stage at the 2018 SXSW Festival soon followed for Megan as did an acclaimed EP bearing her alter ego of Tina Snow, which would later see "Big Ole Freak" be her first entry into the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Her second mixtape, Fever, netted her more acclaim from the music media as it landed in many of their year-end shortlists of 2019's best albums with Paper leading the charge in it ranking at the top. That summer, Megan was named to the 2019 Freshman Class by XXL Magazine before she landed a cameo in Chance The Rapper's debut studio album, and the big breakthrough: the track "Hot Girl" first got traction in the opening titles of HBO's A Black Lady Sketch Show. That, in turn, led Thaa Stallion to drop "Hot Girl Summer" with Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla Sign, and both the single and its accompanying meme of the same name spurred by an Instagram Live session with the titans of female hip-hop, saw her crack the top quarter of the Hot 100 and both a Roc Nation management deal and a mention in Time's 100 Next list... and also making "Hot Girl" America's biggest catchphrase last summer.
And then, there's 2020: Megan started this year collaborating with Fifth Harmony's Normani on "Diamonds" for the Birds of Prey soundtrack, which was shortly followed by revealing her debut album Suga, two singles and performing on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. But the momentum was stalled temporarily by issues with her label, 1501 Certified, which caused her album to be pushed into March, just in time for the song "Savage" to make waves when Keara Wilson challenged TikTok users to dance to the track. The result was 16 million views, over 2.5 million likes, a remix with Beyoncé, and Thaa Stallion's first Top 10 single which eventually topped the chart altogether, which also inspired her to help donate a cut of the single's proceeds to help Houstonians affected by the pandemic. And a few weeks ago, Megan collaborated with Young Thug on "Don't Stop," which they performed on Saturday Night Live and directed their performance at Kentucky's Attorney General in the midst of Black Lives Matter.
But there are two moments this summer that made Megan Thaa Stallion a household name: first came what happened in July when she was staring down a battle with her own life: she suffered gunshot wounds and had to be transported to hospital for surgery, contradicting a TMZ report that she and Tory Lanez were involved in a shooting and him being cuffed on gun charges after police pulled him over. Then, Megan let it out that he was the one who was getting shot at in claiming that she didn't tell the cops of what went down out of fear that she could die.
In September, Tory addressed the shooting during his fifth album Daystar where he denied shooting Megan and leading PR reps for both sides to get into a battle of words. The next month, authorities came to the front door to hand Tory charges of shooting Megan along with a protective order and surrendering any weapons in his possession and is looking at spending the next two decades behind bars, but has since pleaded not guilty. And in an October New York Times op-ed Megan wrote: "Black women are still constantly disrespected and disregarded in so many areas of life. I was recently the victim of an act of violence by a man. After a party, I was shot twice as I walked away from him. We were not in a relationship. Truthfully, I was shocked that I ended up in that place."
VIDEO COURTESY: TMZ
And it just a couple weeks ago (and before taking the AMA's stage) that she revealed the surprise release the following week of debut studio album Good News, which also saw the release of the single "Body" and its accompanying music video. The star-studded clip not only features Taraji but also a slew of other celebrity cameos: reality star Blac Chyna, hip-hop model Bernice Burgos, rappers Asian Da Brat and Maliibu Miitch, former member of the Kardashians friend circle Jordyn Woods, and someone familiar to us who, like Megan, had been having quite a productive 2020 -- at least professionally.
As we are on the edge of kicking off the new season of The Challenge: Double Agents in two weeks from tomorrow, it's worth noting that six of this winter's competitors have also graced the American version of MTV's global dating series Ex On The Beach, which came to us on the waves of the British Invasion of the fifth major pro sport that started on Vendettas almost three years ago. We saw Nicole Zanatta on the most recent season of EOTB USA last winter, Devin Walker and rookie Mechie Harris on Season 3 in summer 2019, and MTV king Cory Wharton on the first one a year earlier.
She has certainly been busy since summer of last year in the world of music videos: first with, ironically enough, Cardi B. when she made out with the Dominican in the opening scene of the "Press" video during the mayhem of her eventful 2019. Then this year, Nurys scored another big gig: she was one of the two girls who came in from the skies to a house party hosted by Chris Brown in his video for "Go Crazy," followed shortly after by being the female lead in the travel-themed clip for "Aye-Yo" by Diddy's son Quincy... it wasn't long ago that she was part of that love triangle with Diandra Delgado & Malcolm Drummer in not only the EOTB Season 2 house, but also the AYTO Season 6 abode too.
And now, you can add Megan The Stallion to Cardi, Chris, Quincy and DRAM to that list of artists who have had Nurys in their music videos, this time as a dancer behind the biggest star of the moment in hip-hop - and with plenty of twerking in less than three minutes and with her appearing at the 1:26 mark. She wrote on Instagram after Friday's video premiere, "The category is BODY❕ Thank you @theestallion for the amazing opportunity & for showing that beauty comes in all different shapes and sizes 🖤 Truly such a dope project to be a part of. You're a real one, I hope this album goes platinum sis cuz you deserve it! #RealHotGirlS___ 👅"
And not surprisingly, her fellow MTV Reality alumni sent some praise to Nurys in the IG comments section after "Body" debuted to over 12 million views in the first several days on YouTube, along with AYTO 6'er Kareem Fathella tweeting, "Y’all saw Nurys in that new @theestallion?" It's been an amazing 2020 for Nurys and we only wonder who will be next to have her in their videos.
● @iamkamiam_: "Yesss🔥🔥"
● @audreydiazz_: "Yessss, been dying to see this one!! Babygirl you all look 🔥🔥🔥"
● @ayeejaee_: "yesssss bitch! 👏🏾😍🔥"
● @mayabenberry: "🔥🔥🔥🔥 I wish they would’ve shown your runway scene!! Prada youuu 😍"
● @kelliesweet: "ATE!!😍🔥"
● @giannahammer: "🔥🔥🔥"
● @tori_deal: "Fuck it uppp sis 🔥"
● @ambaaa_: "Ayeeee😻👏🏼"
● @rigatini: "How is this not @nicolescherzinger HOWWWWW🙌🏽🖤🖤🖤"
● @jordiedanielle: "🔥🔥👑"
● @elliengarza: "Ughhhh😍😍😍😍😍"
- I AM DC @DC408Dxtr
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