Da Brat Is Ready to Turn Up at The Dinah
The hip-hop icon on the joys of being out and performing for sapphic crowds.
Da Brat is no stranger to taking to the stage and bringing down the house, but this fall she is stepping in front of a crowd like none other. “I’ve performed for every kind of crowd you can imagine over the years, but this feels more personal,” Da Brat says. “I can just be Brat. I don’t have to think about anything else.”
She’s talking about performing at The Dinah, when the beloved lesbian weekend returns to Palm Springs in September.
The Dinah is an event the out-and-proud rapper could once have never imagined being part of. “For so many years I wasn’t able to fully be myself publicly or talk about who I loved. I came up in a different time, where you felt like certain things could cost you your career,” she recalls. “So to be at a place like The Dinah now, surrounded by all these women who are out here living, loving and being exactly who they are? That’s special to me. And I’m coming to have a good time too.”
Da Brat first burst onto the hip-hop scene in the ’90s with her debut album Funkdafied, which made history as the first album by a solo female rapper to be certified platinum and established her as one of the defining female voices of ’90s hip-hop and beyond. In 2020, she came out and shared her relationship with then-girlfriend, now-wife Jesseca “Judy” Harris-Dupart, with whom she now shares a son.
This marks her first time attending The Dinah. “I’ve heard about The Dinah forever. Everybody talks about the parties and the pool and how crazy it gets, but what I’m really looking forward to is seeing that many women from our community all together in one place just being free,” she says.
And Da Brat won’t be the only one looking forward to seeing familiar faces at The Dinah. When GO asked Pink Foxx which of her fellow artists on the lineup she was most excited to see, her answer came without hesitation: Da Brat. For the legendary rapper, knowing she’s still inspiring artists in the community hits a little differently. “That kind of stuff means more to me than people probably realize. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Sometimes you don’t stop and think about the people you’ve inspired or the people who grew up listening to you because you’re just out here doing what you do.”
And she has one message for Pink Foxx: “Now she better be in there turning up when I hit that stage!”
After the show, Da Brat is ready to enjoy the weekend. “I wanna find my BeauRtiful [a nickname for her wife], get me something to drank, celebrate a good show and actually enjoy the night,” she says. “I’m a wife and a Mommie now, okay, so I don’t know if I can hang like I used to! But I’m still Da Brat. So…we gonna see what happens!”
