Young rap phenom Megan Thee Stallion made her performance debut on NBC’s Saturday Night Live this weekend and also made a clear statement in defense of Black lives—while also calling out Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
Megan joined veteran comedian Chris Rock as special guests for the premiere of SNL’s 46th season on Saturday, and even showed some of her acting chops in a skit about the NBA’s coronavirus bubble before taking to the musical stage and giving a riveting performance of her No. 1 hit “Savage Remix.”
Showing off her signature dance moves and rapping confidently about her infamous knees on a psychedelic black-and-white set, Megan took a detour to highlight the need for racial justice—by pulling for the infamous words of Malcolm X about Black women in America being unprotected and disrespected, and then playing audio of Tamika Mallory, an organizer who has been in the forefront of the fight for Breonna Taylor, saying Cameron “is no different than the sellout negroes that sold our people into slavery by savages.”
“We need to protect our Black women, and love our Black women. Because at the end of the day, we need our Black women,” Megan herself declared, making me a little emotional and a lot proud given her recent experience of being shot and then hounded by people on the internet to prove her pain.
“We need to protect our Black men and stand up for our Black men,” she continued. “Because at the end of the day, we’re tired of seeing hashtags about Black men.”
Watch a video of Megan Thee Stallion’s SNL performance below:
Expect to see more bold Black women exhibiting excellence on SNL this season.
Issa Rae, of Insecure, The Photograph, the Black Lady Sketch Show, and multi-hyphenate success cutting across entertainment platforms, will host SNL for the first time on October 17 alongside musical guest Justin Bieber.
Correction: 10/4/2020, 12:13 p.m. ET: A previous version of this article incorrectly named Tamika Mallory as Tamika Taylor. This has been corrected above.