She’s neither a boy nor a stud, shockingly she doesn’t want to be taken for one either. What we really thought was a hardcore masculine rapper is actually mixed with a domesticated girly girl side as well. Rapper Da Brat Opens Up to Contributing Writer @Lathleen on page 42, of this week’s Hip Hop Weekly Magazine. Pick up your copy now! Shocking bonus clips from the interview after the jump.
Interview by @lathleen
“I love make-up, eye-lashes and getting my nails done,” 36-year-old Brat tells me (Lathleen). The rapper emerged on the scene in the early 90’s when she won a YO! MTV raps contest. The world took her for the tomboy that she appeared to be, sporting baggy jeans and oversized t-shirts. Brat whose real name is Shawntae Harris explains her boyish image. “I just can’t help it that I have swag, and I like my pants to sag sometimes, but when I get ready to do special occasions, I want to shock people, I love the shock factor of it, I don’t want to give it to them all the time, so when I do give it to them and dress girly its like “DAMN, I ain’t know she was that fine!” Da Brat dealt with a lot of criticism for her image growing up. “Girl,” she pauses, exhales and then continues “I’m so use to it, since day one, since 1993 when I came out with Kriss Kross, people was like ‘oh she looks like a little boy’.” Rocking long twists and sometimes a braided hairstyle with bandanas wrapped around her head, Brat talks to me like she means it. “It’s a lot of sides of me that the world hasn’t seen yet, I do everything I’m very domesticated people wouldn’t believe that, I cook, I clean up, I like to wash and fold cloths, I’m very neat, and all the officers in jail were like ‘oh my gosh, you’re so neat! I’m very neat, I have OCD,” she says laughing. Her tone of voice is playful and her country fun accent is excited for the day. She has spent two and a half years in prison after being sentenced for smashing a rum bottle across a hostess face at a nightclub in Atlanta Georgia. We talked for what seemed like hours, the rapper begins to open up more and touch on why she has yet to have children. “I want kids, but you know when you’re younger (as a female), and you’re having sex, you’re like ‘oh my gosh I hope my period come,’ and you know you’re happy when it comes. I feel like, if it was meant for me to have them, I would have had them already.”
A Part 2, to the 1997 female unity song “Ladies Night,” which featured Missy Elliot, Lefteye, Lil Kim and herself:
As a matter a fact, I just got off the phone with Missy, and we are discussing trying to do something like that again, because there is NO unity (Referring to Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj beef.) I wish that everybody will just jump on it, and get it popping for the ladies.
What it was like working with the late Lefteye:
It was great working with her, she was beautiful and unique in her own right, I loved her voice it was very animated, like a little mouse. She was adorable. People like that are irreplaceable.
Being the first female rapper to work with the slain rapper The Notorious BIG:
I was the first female to do a song with B.I.G, called “The B-side” when we worked together we had the studio LIT UP (Smoking)! He was a smooth dude with ALL the bitches! He was so sweet, a good heart, and you felt it when you were around him, he was one of those people that you wanted to keep being around, swaggered out to deaf honey, oh my GOSH!
The Difference between 90s Hip Hop and Today’s Hip Hop:
I think the Internet fucked us up, that messed us up as far as record sales. We had to accept that fact, since I’ve been home I’ve been a computer junkie, and I love to get on it and talk to people. I miss like real lyrics, like the Biggie’s and the Nas’, I mean everything doesn’t have to be complicated but not so so so simple you know what I mean, but like I said different strokes for different folks. But the younger kids love it, but when there is some kind of complexity in the song, it’s good.
How she spends her days on House Arrest:
By the time I get in from work, I’m dead tired, I get on the computer make phone calls, then people come visit me, I don’t go to bed until 1 a.m. then I have work at 7 a.m., I have to wake up at 5 a.m., to drive to work, then get home at 4:30pm, while I’m in traffic, and then when I get back, I got to be in the house, my trainer will start ringing the door, then I work out, then I get on the computer get on JD’S network Global 14, then twitter, whoever is on Facebook saying its Da Brat ,that is NOT me, that’s a perpetrator.
Should we be expecting a new album:
YEAH! HELL YEAH! You’re just going to start to hear me pop up on shit, because I’m eager, Rodney Jerkins hit me, I’m not going to start naming people, but like Kelly Price is in town, I love Kelly Price. I can’t leave the state, so whenever they come to Atlanta, I have a lot, there’s so much that I want to do, I can’t wait, I’m excited.
How she began her rap career at 19:
Well, you have to have a strategic strong team, make your music good, to make people remember you, not just something like wack, and you have to network and get to know people. Have good karma, don’t have a bad nasty attitude, and don’t think you already a success, because the people you are shitty to on your way up, you will pass them coming back down.
Favorite Artists and Secret Crush:
Aww man, R.kelly, I grew up with him in Chicago, he was the shit then, hes the shit now! I love him! He’s sexier than a motherfucker! He use to come up to my school and see me, didn’t know I had a crush on his ass. OH MY GOSH! He’s my favorite, he’s a genius! Of course Mariah, her voice is stupid nice, I love real singers, Kelly Price, Lil Mo’, I like when you can feel it in your toes when they sing.
How She Deals With The Haters:
I’m grateful to all the haters, because if somebody is hating on me and you tell somebody else how much you hate me, you just going to make them inquisitive and what to know what the hell I’m doing, and they are going to go buy my record or watch me on TV. So the haters give me more fans too.
Twitter:
@Only1Brat
Da Brat’s sexuality has been a hot topic for years! Find out how she puts that rumor to rest on page 42 of this week’s issue of Hip Hop Weekly Magazine with Nate Dogg on the Cover!
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