Songoftheday 5/14/22 - I like 'em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian, with good conversation plenty big faces...

 

 

"What'chu Like" - Da Brat featuring Tyrese

from the album Unrestricted (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #26 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 7

 

Today's song comes from female rap artist Da Brat, whose second album Anuthatantrum in 1996 spun off two top-40 crossover pop hits with "Sittin' On Top Of The World" and "Ghetto Love".  In the next couple of years, she was featured on a lot of hits from other artists, including a top ten pop gig with Lil' Kim on "Not Tonight", a top ten R&B hit with Missy Elliott on "Sock It 2 Me", and equal billing with producer/rapper Jermaine JD Dupri in 1998 for the top-40 pop hit "The Party Continues". Da Brat also had a cameo on the urban remixes of Mariah Carey smashes "Heartbreaker" and "I Still Believe". 

In 2000, Da Brat returned with her third album Unrestricted. The lead promo single from the record, "That's What I'm Looking For", was a co-write with Dupri and Elliott, and peaked at #18 on Billboard magazine's R&B singles chart and #56 on the pop Hot 100. The other side of the 12" single was then offered as the second single, and it got a much better reception. "What'chu Like", written by the rapper and producer Dupri, featured pin-up soul singer Tyrese, who had just missed the pop top ten by a couple notches in the spring of 1999 with "Sweet Lady". Trying to recast as a sexpot in the Lil Kim / Foxy Brown vein, forgoing her previous harder-edged image, she spits verses about how good in bed she is, and the "men" that get her going (she did date basketball bad boy Allen Iverson previously). With a slinky sample of postdisco queen Claudja Barry's "For The Sake Of Love" as a foundation, and Tyrese wailing in the background, the more nuanced track found its way back to mainstream radio...

"What'chu Like" returned Da Brat to the Hot 100 top-40 in August of 2000. The song was her second as a lead artist to make the top ten on Billboard's R&B Singles chart at #9, as well as #11 on their Rap Singles chart, while the track hit #7 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic radio chart. Internationally, the single went to #9 in the Netherlands and #31 in neighboring Belgium. The Unrestricted album, released in April of that year, rewarded her with her highest rank on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #5, and second #1 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell just almost million copies. 

Despite the success of the single and the album, Da Brat's third single from the set, "We Ready" with Dupri and a pre-fame Lil Jon, stiffed. But her profile stayed pretty decent with more guest spots on Mariah Carey and Destiny's Child singles, and in 2003, after Dupri's label So So Def changed distribution to Arista Records, the rapper returned with her fourth disc Limelite, Luv, & Niteclubz. The record went to #17 on the Billboard 200, and hit the top ten on the R&B Albums list at #6, but the lead single "In Love Wit Chu" featuring female vocal group Cherish stopped just short of the Hot 100 top-40 at #44, making the level on the R&B list at #32. Yes, it's the same Cherish that is now enjoying a top ten dance hit this year with Acraze's rework of their "Do It To It" song. Another cut from the album, "Got It Poppin'", was nominated for a Grammy award in 2004 for Best Female Rap Solo Performance, losing to collaborator Missy Elliott for her smash "Work It".

In 2005, she came back to the pop top-20 as one of the featured rappers on Dem Franchise Boyz' single "I Think They Like Me", which hit #15 there and topped the R&B singles chart for three weeks. But her violent tendencies got the best of her, and after an assault guilty plea in 2001 was followed by an even more brutal attack that put in jail for almost two years and with a civil judgement in the millions, her music career was pretty much cut off after that. She ended up appearing on a few reality shows, as well as radio DJ stints. A "comeback" album attempt, The Return, came out in 2018, but was quickly ignored and isn't even in print or Spotify. 

Most recently, Da Brat, aka Shawntae Harris, revealed she was a lesbian, which the stress of hiding may have contributed to all that aggressive behavior. Now she's married to a successful woman with kids, and things are definitely looking better. A new single, "Quarantine With You" with Kito Abashi and Mister, was released last year.  This was Da Brat's last top-40 pop hit as a lead artist, but she will return to the series in a featured role as I mentioned.

(5/10)

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Here's a clip of Da Brat performing the song at a festival in Chicago...

 

 Up tomorrow: This Is Us...In Love for this singer who went on to bigger things.