Anime-loving blerds of the world, this one’s for you! In conjunction with the release of her highly anticipated single/summer anthem, “Hot Girl Summer,” the newly minted hip-hop goddess known as Megan Thee Stallion is also perched atop the digital cover of Paper magazine in a look so hot it’d make all of Comic-Con break into a cold sweat.
For the cover story, Meg channels the manga hero known as Todoroki, a character gifted with both fire and ice superpowers—and as we well know, both can burn.
Combining Todoroki’s powers with those of her own alter ego, Tina Snow (as immortalized on 2018's EP of the same name), Megan dubbed herself “Todoroki Tina” as she posed against animated backdrops of flames and frozen tundras.
And yeah...that’s hot.
But to hear Megan tell it, the movement—and mood—we now know as “Hot Girl Summer” started the way many of her freestyles do, just on the strength of her quick wit (which she credits to her late mother, Holly Thomas, also known as former rapper Holly Wood).
“I didn’t even think that [Hot Girl Summer] would be something that was this big. I just be talking,” she told Paper. “The Hotties run with it and love it, now everybody is a Hottie. I’m flattered. I appreciate it: spread the awareness, spread the movement.”
Megan is now attempting to trademark the phrase—as she should, since, as Paper notes, brands as diverse as Wendy’s and Maybelline have been capitalizing on the momentum. But proving she’s still a stallion of the people, she makes clear that not only is “Hot Girl Summer” non-gendered, it’s open to even the most questionable twerk-adopters, like Miley Cyrus (who is reportedly a fan).
“We want all the Hot Girls we can get,” Megan says. “For me, watching Hannah Montana...for Miley Cyrus to be having a Hot Girl Summer, I’m like, ‘Damn. That’s amazing!’”
What’s amazing is Meg’s almost universal appeal—as well as her refusal, thus far, to beef or be compared with other women in the industry. While her collaboration with Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign is still hot off the press, Megan is already musing about another dream collab...and now, she’s got us dreaming about it, too.
“I love Rihanna,” she tells Paper. “The Bad Girl and the Hot Girl, that would be something.”
Umm...we’re sure you can make room on that in-the-works ninth album, right, Rih? Right?
We can only hope. But for now, we’re going to sit here and chair twerk to our new favorite hot girl anthem (because that’s about the most our knees can take), which may stay at the top of our playlists well past Labor Day.
“There is so much going on with this song,” Megan tells Paper. “But I literally think I’m going to extend the summer until October. I think I can do that. Fuck it. Why not?”