Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
Recently, Da Brat sat down with Kandi Burruss to discuss all types of stuff. And being that the two have known one another since they were teenagers, she was open and very candid about everything from her sexuality, coming and her relationship with Allen Iverson.
Check out all of it and then some in the transcription and watch the full interview in the video.
Tension with Xscape and Left Eye
Da Brat: I felt like y’all did not like me. I felt like y’all didn’t like me at all. Y’all was looking at me like ‘Who did b*tch, Harpo?’
Kandi: Now, we might have gave you that look because obviously, we were the first group signed to So-So Def, then you came along. If I have to be honest with you, I felt like you immediately had this friendship with him that we didn’t have. We were cool with him, but your shi*t with Jermaine were immediately like this. And we were like, ‘He don’t treat us like that.’
Da Brat: But that’s cause y’all was more girly girly and I was more tomboyish. I was like the third member of Kriss Kross. We would wrestle. We would smack each other on the ass until our hands were red and swollen. We would play video games. Y’all wasn’t into that type of stuff.
Kandi: I actually was into video games and I used to gamble with him all the time. But I wasn’t trying to act funny with you though.
Da Brat: I just felt it. Coming from Chicago, growing up in church everything was ‘I love you. I love you.’ Hugs. And coming down to Atlanta it was different. I was expecting to be like, ‘Oh my God, I love y’all.’ It was like, Skkkrtt. Who you, b*tch? I just felt it. I don’t know if it came from two of y’all, three of y’all or all of y’all.
And I was like, ‘Oo they don’t like me.’
I got the same thing from Left Eye though, so I’m used to it.
Kandi: You did?!
Da Brat: Yeah. She ain’t like me. I loved her too.
Kandi: Maybe it was that both of y’all rapped.
Da Brat: And she was JD’s right hand patna. I’m another female rapper that came in and she was like, ‘Who dis, Harpo?’
Kandi: In June, you basically came out to the world in Variety. For you, that was a major moment. What made decide to do that?
Da Brat: Well, my significant other, the woman that I was in love with, she’s a public social media figure. She lives her life out loud. What do you do when you fall in love with somebody who’s already out loud and you are private? You got to meet somewhere in the middle and make some kind of sacrifice and comprise. I felt like I absolutely wanted to because she was worth it. So now, we have a happy medium where the stuff we don’t want people to know, we don’t talk about. She’s learned that privacy part from me and I learned that kinda being out a little and expressing and showing the love that you got for each other in public from her.
I just felt comfortable. We were cracking jokes one day, at her mom’s house in New Orleans because her daughter was having a baby and she said, ‘I’m gon post it.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t care. Post it! What picture you gon post? I’m gon post it first.’ So, a few days went by and she didn’t post it. So I’m here sitting, trying to figure out what I’m gonna post. And she posted it. And I’m like, ‘Oh, b*tch, I guess we just came out!’
I was nervous but I was like, you know what, ‘F*ck it!’ I’m happy. I don’t care. I’m in love with this woman. She completes me. She makes me happy. She makes me feel like I’ve never felt before, ‘Hell yeah, I want people to know.’ That don’t mean I’m finna tell them every nook and cranny of my business, but this part, as far as my happiness, I’ve never shown it. I’ve never talked about who I was with.
I mean, you got a little leak of it when I was f*cking with Allen Iverson. You might have thought you knew, but I never confirmed anything because I always felt that was the only thing I was able to have to myself, private, was my personal life. But now I don’t give a f*ck. I’m happy. I want you to see I’m happy. This is who makes me happy. And it is what it is.
Kandi: What was the response?
Da Brat: Oh man, I got nothing but good responses. It made me feel so good that I did it. First of all, for myself it was like a weight lifted. I got nothing but positive responses. Then you got your troll muthaf*ckas. ‘We been knew! That ain’t nothing new.’
Kandi: Listen! But did I not tell you, a long time ago, just live your life. Don’t nobody care.
Da Brat: You did. When I got out of prison, you met me at my manager’s house, when I was still wearing the ankle monitor. And you was wanting to do this tv show about lesbians. And I was like, ‘Girl! I ain’t doing that!’ I thought about it but I just wasn’t ready. I was still scared. I was like, ‘I’m not finna get on here with all these gay b*tches and not look gay?!
But now, I’m living in my truth, my own skin. If anybody don’t like it, oh well, to hell with them. They can be miserable or do whatever they want to do.
Kandi: What I’ve found in my life is that when people feel like you have a secret or something you don’t want people to know, they try to use that as a weapon. So I just feel like, you got to be happy with whatever decision you make so if it ever come out, you can be like, ‘Sh*t, I did it. I had fun when I did it, so f*ck it.’ Live life with no regrets as much as you can. I can’t stand when people feel like they got something to hang over your head. And people do that a lot.
I knocked that out because I want to go back in time in So So Def years. Where were you in terms of the personal sense of who you were?
Da Brat: When we first started, I just was a tomboy. I never had no experience with women, never liked a girl. Never felt like I wanted to be a dude, never felt nothing. I had never been attracted to women. But when I was working on my album, there was this girl that worked at Columbia and I don’t know what the f*ck happened. We started talking to each other on the phone and I kept wanting to talk to this girl. Longer. And when I didn’t talk to her, I missed her. I really didn’t think nothing of it. But then when she came to Atlanta, the b*tch never left. It lasted for a while. But I was so—trying to make people happy. I shut my family out for her. She wasn’t right though. She wasn’t a nice person, really. But I was just so smitten because I had never felt this way before. It was new. I was probably like 17, 18 while I was working on Funkdafied.
Kandi: Back them, we were labelmates. I know we all picked up on hmm ok. But there was never a confirmation. No public affection.
Da Brat: Back then, I never wanted to be disrespectful to anybody. It wasn’t like it is now.
Kandi: But it was a lot of people who was living that life.
Da Brat: But then Ellen lost her jobs and everything. I wouldn’t have came out then anyway because my grandmothers were still alive. And I had a sanctified grandmother that I would never want the church people to say nothing about her or to criticize her. She’s passed on now for a few years now but I didn’t want to disrespect nobody or make anybody else feel uncomfortable. I was living for everyone else. I lived inside of my bubble with my happiness. Of course, the people around me knew. My mom and my close friends knew. But if my granny ever tried to find out, ‘No, granny that’s my friend.’
Kandi: That relationship was going on but then you met Allen Iverson. And you met Kirk [Frost].
Da Brat: I met Kirk at the same time I was kinda talking to the first girlfriend. We were still friends, there were no sexual things happening between us. And I saw Kirk. We was at a club. We was kids.
Kandi: I was there.
Da Brat: Girl, shut up.
Kandi: I remember he gave you 5 100 dollar bills with his phone number on it.
Da Brat: 20 100 dollar bills. On the front and the back.
Kandi: And you was like, ‘Ooo look at this.’ I was like, ‘Girl, you better go ahead and talk to him.’
Da Brat: That was a get your attention b*tch. That had never happened to me before. You got my attention. Who is this? Where this n*gga at? I ain’t ask about who he was messing with… I was like we going to eat or something, n*gga! Where you want to go? He bought me a Lincoln Navigator and everything But I didn’t know about the whole Rasheeda thing. And it eventually fizzled out and they got married and I moved on.
Kandi: But that was around the time you found yourself first attracted to a female.
Da Brat: Yes, all my life I had little boyfriends. From church, teenager, high school, junior high. I had the fly n*ggas that wore the Girbauds and stuff. I did not like girls at all…Bisexual.
Bisexual is an old term so I don’t mind that. But all that new sh*t, I don’t do. Muhf*ckas done called me a tree, a stem, a branch.
I said, ‘What the f*ck is a stem?’ A stud and a fem. I said, ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m not either one of those.’ I don’t feel like I’m a stud at all. I feel like I’m still a tomboy. The same muthaf*cka I was. I like my nails pink. I’m not a stud. I like cute underwear, I like em to match. I like my hair done, makeup. So I’m definitely not a stud. I hate that title sh*t. I’m just Brat. I guess you could call it fluid. It’s so many names.
Source: Prince Williams / Getty
Allen Iverson
Kandi: So moving on to Allen Iverson…how did that come about and did he even know that you were bi.
Da Brat: I think he knew but we never talked about it. I met his whole family. We flew to Japan. I had never been to Japan. Ooo, I hope I ain’t telling too much. It was crazy. And I would get up in the morning…I’m a grandma’s child. I’m very domesticated. I like cooking. I like cleaning. I like folding. It’s therapeutic. I used to wake up and pick his clothes out and cook breakfast and jack his d*ck off when he’d wake up in the morning. The things he liked, just to make sure he was happy. And he spoiled me and made sure I was happy.
I was like, ‘This is it!’ But then I think you know, basketball players? Hoes. He had a baby mama, some kids. He had a lot of stuff going on. So it lasted for a good while. Both of my grandmothers, they were alive. They loved him. He was so sweet to them. It was good for a minute. It was good for a long time. It just didn’t work out. Too many b*tches.
The last straw, I think we were sitting outside the hotel, in the hallway. And this half naked b*tch, walks up the hallway talking about she looking for him. I’m sitting there with him. I’m like, ‘B*tch, I know you see me sitting here with this n*gga. You still gon say you looking for him?’ I must have molly whopped that b*tch down the hallway.
I said, ‘You know what, I can’t do this. I can’t do this with you.’ I just faded out, stopped answering the calls and it fizzled out.
But then I heard, he was f*cking dis b*tch, dat b*tch. B*tches I knew, b*tches I was cool with. I was like nope. I’m done.
Kandi: So, was he your last boyfriend?
Da Brat: No, he wasn’t my last. And [the girl from Columbia records] wasn’t my last girlfriend either. It was a few situations that I had that I’d rather mention. But as of right now, Jesseca Dupart is my last.
Kandi: Are y’all going to actually get married?
Da Brat: I kind of want to but I never thought about marrying a woman but we’ve talked about it. I would love to marry her. I don’t think anybody would oppose. My grandmother’s probably turning over in her grave but as long as I’m happy, I think she would understand. But I got my own legal issues and my own life issues that I want to keep separate from hers. So I don’t need it to be a union yet so I don’t want to pull her into none of my sh*t that I’ve caused for myself.
We would probably both end up proposing to make it grand and extra. She might get on the left knee, I might get on the right knee. I would do it in a heartbeat. I love her. She’s my forever.
Kandi: To see you go from not really talking about your personal life to being so open, it’s awesome.
Da Brat: It’s like a caged up bird been let free to do whatever and not give a f*ck. People talk about not giving a f*ck about what people say. Yes, they do. People want people to love them and not hate them. You got to get a coat of armor for this industry. I been getting called a dyke and lesbian since I came out. So when people that now, people been saying that, you gon have to come up with something new to f*ck me up.
Source: Thaddaeus McAdams / Getty
Fighting people with her sister LisaRaye
Da Brat: She is who she is. She’s going to say what she want to say. And whatever backlash she get from it, she been in the industry for a minute. She know how to deal with it. I ain’t worried about her at all. I learned a lot from her. We used to whoop people ass in Chicago.
I ain’t even going to get off too deep into it but this one girl stole some money from my sister one time, from a ballplayer dude that was my sister’s boyfriend. My sister wasn’t supposed to know where the money was hid. But she went in the money box and the friend saw. When I tell you we molly whooped her. We dragged her all through the hallway of the apartments.
We from Chicago. We had to fight growing up. I had to fight going to school because I was light skinned. B*tches wanted to cut my face. It was for real. So my defense mechanism is to fight. My reaction is like that. But I’m better than that now. I’ve had anger management and I’ve been to prison. So I’m a much better person and I’m very proud of the maturity level that I have reached thus far.
Kandi: That prison experience…what did you think when they actually told you, you was gon have to spend time in prison? Did you cry?
Da Brat: Hell yeah. First, I was in shock. And then I went into a depression. I started taking some depression medicine. But that made me sick. Then I had to start smoking more weed cuz the weed stop you from being nauseous. It was bad.
You can listen to the rest of the interview, where Da Brat talks about her stint in prison and more in the video below.
