If you’re reading this, you probably have a vague sense that you are in the era of Megan Pete, more commonly referred to as Megan Thee Stallion. This is a season of domination for the 24-year-old Texas rapper and mastermind behind everyone’s “hot girl summer.” Not only was that phrase so ubiquitous that puzzled parents across the nation probably asked their kids what it meant, but in June, Pete’s mixtape, Fever, peaked at number four on the Billboard R&B/hip-hop album sales charts. It effectively gave us all a soundtrack for warm-weather shenanigans, even if your personal hot girl summer mostly found you in a cubicle receiving vacation email auto-replies from other people.
Hot girl summer gave way to hot girl fall, which, ironically, was when Pete’s hit single “Hot Girl Summer” finally hit number one on the Billboard charts. Pete then blessed our entry into 2020 with an Instagram post of herself alongside Beyoncé Knowles Carter and Blue Ivy Carter. To put it simply, Megan Thee Stallion is huge right now.
While you might be familiar with her catchphrases and hits, there’s another layer of our collective fascination with Pete. You don’t have to look very far to encounter videos of Pete dropping down toward the ground, stopping midway, and twerking in perfect time, her hips and legs forming an impressive angle. It seems like she could go on forever. Watching Pete suspended in a squat is a testament to her athleticism, grace, and, to be honest, knee strength.
I know that Pete’s thighs and butt play a huge role in making this magic happen, but when I watch these videos, I really am most struck by how strong her knees seem. (I sometimes even hold my own in anticipatory pain.) I’m not alone. Pete’s videos have spawned an ongoing Twitter conversation that involves fans wishing for her knees, wondering whether their lives would be different if God had given them her knee strength, and lamenting over the knee pain that comes from momentarily thinking they are Pete.
Full disclosure: I have never and will never be able to execute anything resembling a respectable twerk. I’ve been rhythmless since birth, so any attempt at public twerking would be unpleasant for everyone involved. I’ve also had tendonitis in my knee since I was 19, and I hear Rice Krispies sounds when I squat.
I’ve made peace with the fact that my entire dance repertoire begins with a body roll and ends with an awkward two-step, but as your humble Senior Health Editor, I’m still curious about the physiological mechanisms that allow Pete to drop low without falling or winding up in the hospital.
Before I go any further in this very pressing investigation, I want to make it clear that I know Pete is not the first person with an impressive twerk game, nor am I the first person to write about it. (Her knees have been dubbed “revolutionary” and spurred analyses of classic works of art.) It’s also important for me to note that just as Pete’s musical style exists within a tradition of black hip-hop performers, her dancing has a lineage as well. Twerking grew out of New Orleans bounce culture and has roots in Afro-diasporic religions, according to a 2015 paper by Elizabeth Pérez, Ph.D., assistant professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and published in African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal. Additionally, knee-defying dance moves have long been the domain of black and Latinx queer culture. Drag performers were doing dips, drops, and duckwalks before Pete and I were born.
