---
title: "Da Brat’s Anuthatantrum turns 30; the Jermaine Dupri-produced follow-up to Funkdafied went Gold"
url: https://badiyaa.com/da-brat-anuthatantrum-30-years/
published: 2026-11-12T14:55:00+00:00
modified: 2026-11-12T14:55:00+00:00
section: Entertainment
publisher: Badiyaa
---

# Da Brat’s Anuthatantrum turns 30; the Jermaine Dupri-produced follow-up to Funkdafied went Gold

Da Brat's second album Anuthatantrum, released on October 29, 1996 and produced by Jermaine Dupri, peaked at No. 20 in the US and went Gold in 1997.

Da Brat’s second album turned 30 this fall. Anuthatantrum came out on October 29, 1996, two years after the Chicago rapper’s debut Funkdafied made her the first female solo rapper to reach a million in sales. The follow-up peaked at No. 20 on the US albums chart and No. 5 on the R&B/hip-hop albums chart, and was certified Gold in 1997.

## Short, tight and all Dupri

Jermaine Dupri produced the whole record. He had signed her to So So Def after she won a 1992 local rap contest sponsored by Yo! MTV Raps, a prize that included meeting his young duo Kris Kross. Recorded at KrossWire Studio in Atlanta during 1995 and 1996, Anuthatantrum runs just 33 minutes 39 seconds across 11 tracks, with Carl-So-Lowe co-producing several. It was released through So So Def, Columbia and Sony.

## The singles

“Sittin’ on Top of the World” led off on September 24, 1996, riding a sample of Rick James’s “Mary Jane.” “Ghetto Love,” out March 1, 1997, paired her with Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins of TLC and blended DeBarge’s “All This Love” with Public Enemy’s “Public Enemy No. 1.”

That Atlanta connection runs both ways: TLC’s own [CrazySexyCool, which turns 32 this week, made them the first girl group with a diamond album](https://badiyaa.com/tlc-crazysexycool-32-years-diamond/).

## What the critics said

Reviews were split. One major album guide called it “a slight improvement” on Funkdafied and liked Dupri’s move toward early-’80s funk. A Chicago newspaper critic allowed that her rhyming had grown more varied, but wrote that “these skills are wasted on narrow and cliched subject matter.”

## A sample map of the album

- “Anuthatantrum”: Sting, “The Soul Cages”

- “Sittin’ on Top of the World”: Rick James, “Mary Jane”

- “Let’s All Get High” with Krayzie Bone: Zapp, “Be Alright”

- “Just a Little Bit More”: Dionne Warwick, “Déjà Vu”

- “Lyrical Molestation”: the Notorious B.I.G., “Who Shot Ya?”

The list shows how far Dupri reached, from Rick James funk to Sting to a Notorious B.I.G. record from the same era.

## Her busy 1996 and 1997

The album was only part of her run. In 1996 she rapped on the So So Def remix of Mariah Carey’s No. 1 single “Always Be My Baby” and made her film debut in Kazaam with Shaquille O’Neal. The next year she joined Lil’ Kim, Left Eye, Angie Martinez and Missy Elliott on the “Not Tonight” Ladies Night remix, which drew a 1998 Grammy nomination. Martinez is back in the news with [her unaired 1996 Tupac Shakur interview, now a Netflix series](https://badiyaa.com/angie-martinez-tupac-tapes-netflix/), and Elliott recently brought [four HBCU marching bands to Norfolk State for her band battle](https://badiyaa.com/missy-elliott-hbcu-band-battle-norfolk-state/).

Da Brat’s third album, Unrestricted, followed in 2000 and reached No. 5 on the US albums chart.

## Further reading

- [Wikipedia: Anuthatantrum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anuthatantrum)

- [Wikipedia: Da Brat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Brat)

*Image: Guian Bolisay, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons*

*This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*