Da Brat - Give It 2 You

What this video is

Released as the third and final single from Da Brat's debut album Funkdafied—the first solo female rap album to go platinum—'Give It 2 You' arrived at a watershed moment in hip-hop's commercial ascent. The video functions as a living document of mid-90s rap's interconnected celebrity ecosystem, assembling artists from the Bad Boy, So So Def, and independent East/West Coast networks into a single party setting. Its…

Why it matters

A canonical example of the mid-90s 'posse cut' video format applied to a solo female rapper, 'Give It 2 You' documents Da Brat's unique position as a So So Def crossover act capable of uniting Atlanta, New York, and West Coast rap scenes in a single visual frame. The video's party-rap aesthetic…

The director

Michael Merriman is a music video director credited with directing Da Brat's 'Give It 2 You' (1995) for So So Def Recordings. The video premiered on BET, MTV, and VH1 in 1995. Further biographical details are not available from currently indexed sources.