Megan Thee Stallion cleaned up at the Grammys, winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for “Savage” featuring Beyonce, as well as Best New Artist. That made this a landmark year for Megan, but also for female rappers in general. Check out the complete list of Grammy winners here.
She’s the first female rapper to win Best New Artist, depending on whether you count Lauryn Hill, who prevailed in 1999; she had won Best Rap Album for “The Score” as a member of The Fugees in 1997, but most of her nominations and wins in 1999 were as an R&B artist. Besides Megan, the only female artists to even be nominated in this category for predominantly rap music were Nicki Minaj (2012) and Iggy Azalea (2015).
Trailblazers like Lil Kim, Salt-n-Pepa, Foxy Brown, Queen Latifah and Eve were snubbed for the award. Cardi B probably would have been nominated were it not for a quirk in timing: she had already been nominated for her breakthrough single “Bodak Yellow” in 2018, so she was ineligible for Best New Artist when she blew up with her debut album “Invasion of Privacy” in 2019. The Rap Performance win for “Savage” also made her and Beyonce the first women to claim that gender-combined category.
What’s more, Megan could make just as big an impact at next year’s Grammys. Her first full-length studio album, “Good News,” was released in November, a couple of months into the current eligibility cycle, so it’s eligible for consideration in 2022. So there could be more good news for Megan in a year’s time.
