The 24-year-old rapper hosted a kinder beauty pageant, with scholarship money as the prize — because “tuition ain’t no joke.”

Last Thursday, at Nightingale Plaza, a trendy club in West Hollywood, fans of Megan Thee Stallion wore sashes bearing the phrase “Cognac Queen” (the тιтle of one of her songs) and waited for the rapper to arrive for the night’s event: a pageant of sorts. Though rap may be a male-dominated arena where women are pitted against each other for an imaginary single top stop, tonight was all about showing fierce support.

“I want to show other girls how happy I am and how confident I am, how I still want to go to school and I still want to rap,” the 24-year-old artist said earlier that night in a H๏τel suite, where her makeup artist and hair stylist were getting her ready for the event. “I just want to be like a good example to somebody in the future.”

In ninth grade, when she was better known by her given name, Megan Pete, the rapper was crowned Miss Pearland, after the small city south of Houston where she went to high school. It was her first and last time competing for a crown. “It wasn’t something my heart was in,” she said.

“Houston is a place where you have to be the best,” she continued. “Everybody gotta be flashy, flashy. It’s not like a gaudy thing, but people definitely put on their best dressed even if they go into Wal-Mart.”

That night, the rapper — who now takes online courses at Texas Southern University, since her travel schedule doesn’t allow her to be on campus any longer — would award a $2,500 scholarship to the winning contestant.

“I just thought it would have been a good thing to do because I know that tuition ain’t no joke,” she said. “So if I could do something to help somebody else, then I thought that would be nice.”

When she was growing up, Megan Thee Stallion watched her mother pursue a rap career under the name Holly-Wood. It wasn’t until she was in college that she disclosed her own desire to rap. (In March, her mother died after a brain tumor was discovered.)

She rose to local fame through a series of cyphers, or freestyle rap battles, while attending college. Her video “STALLI FREESTYLE” is often cited as the song that introduced her to the rest of the world. This year, she appears on the cover of XXL’s annual Freshman Class issue, a stamp of approval in the music industry, alongside DaBaby, Rico Nasty, Tierra Whack and Blueface.