The four-time Grammy-nominated rapper Gunna was traveling in the south of France with his longtime collaborator, Spike Jordan, when the artist and the director decided it was time to level up.
To maintain their globetrotting careers, Gunna — born Sergio Giavanni Kitchens — and Jordan had become pickleball and padel devotees. In France, they decided that they were ready for something a bit more challenging: tennis.
That meant they had to learn, and Jordan knew exactly who he wanted to call.
“Why not learn from the best?” he said.
So began the chain of events that led to Coco Gauff’s cameo in Gunna’s latest music video, for the song “Pop It,” which Jordan directed.
The video, which has amassed almost 4 million views since it debuted on YouTube on Oct. 9, opens on a red clay tennis court nestled among lush trees, where Gauff, decked out in a Miu Miu bralette, mini skirt and knee-high leather boots, hits a cinematic serve in slow motion.
Gunna, chains bouncing out of his beige argyle polo, chunks a return into the net.
“OK! I see you,” Gauff says encouragingly. The pair banter before Gunna makes a request. He asks Gauff to hit an ace.
“You sure?” she asks.
“Pop it!” Gunna says.
The camera cuts to a bird’s-eye view of Gauff in her service motion, and she arrows a serve right into the camera lens to start the track.
The 22-year-old’s appearance in the video marks her highest-profile foray into the entertainment business, though she’s already established connections to the music industry that go beyond fandom. The rapper Tyler, The Creator dropped her name — “You ain’t Coco Gauff, you can’t serve me”— in his song “Thought I Was Dead” from his album “Chromakopia.”
Gauff returned the favor by quoting him in her speech after winning the French Open in 2025.
“I didn’t think honestly that I could do it. But I’m gonna quote Tyler, The Creator right here. He said, ‘If I ever told you I had a doubt inside me, I must be lying.’”
Gauff has had hitting sessions with famed British musician and producer Dev Hynes, best-known for performing and producing as Blood Orange, and Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Faye Webster, who has brought Gauff on stage during her concerts in the past. She has also developed relationships and mutual appreciations with other prominent artists, including SZA and Ravyn Lenae.
Gauff also speaks often about how she connects music to tennis on a personal level. Gospel and hip hop are her go-to genres when she walks out onto court for a match.
Gauff’s appearance in “Pop It” continues a broader trend of young tennis stars crossing over into popular culture by expressing their identities off court in conjunction with their status as sports stars, ungoverned by tennis’ rigid etiquette and unspoken expectations.
Naomi Osaka wore her heritage — both her Japanese-Haitian heritage and the intangible heritage passed down by her athletic forebears — like armor this year, donning intricate walk-out outfits that she would shed before each of her Grand Slam matches.
Carlos Alcaraz experimented with fashion and hairstyles, and reveled in his celebrity while sidelined with a wrist injury during spring and summer, appearing both at a Bad Bunny concert and the World Cup final, where he presented the trophy pre-game. Gauff, too, attended a Bad Bunny gig in London ahead of Wimbledon.
The timing of Gunna’s video was a coincidence, but there is a way to read meaning into Gauff’s self-expression, which she posted about on Instagram with the caption, “A lil side quest for the culture.”
The video was released Oct. 9, two days after the world No. 5 withdrew from the final WTA 1000 tournament of the year, the Wuhan Open, due to fatigue.
Gauff’s withdrawal followed a three-day stretch during which she received what she called an “insane” amount of racist abuse online following a second-round win at the China Open over China’s Sun Xinran.
Amid that heaviness, Gauff’s appearance in the video is celebratory, cool and self-assured. “Pop It” was released the day Gunna announced the launch of his own record label, SB The Label, in partnership with Atlantic Music Group.
The launch was a milestone for the artist, a project he embarked on at 33 knowing exactly what he wants out of his career. Assurance in one’s own taste is what Jordan called “the luxury of knowing” during an interview last week.
“It’s about knowing what you want in life and no longer feeling like you need to prove yourself to anybody. It’s about confidence,” Jordan said. “Coco is special because she’s so young, and the way she carried herself, it was confident. She knows exactly who she is. We were in her world.” Gunna had already spent some time in Gauff’s world lately, attending her U.S. Open semifinal loss to Elena Rybakina. (SZA and Lenae were there, too).
Gunna’s interest in tennis cropped up just as he and Jordan were exploring ideas for the “Pop It” video. Tennis fit the theme of quietly subversive luxury, which Jordan brought to life further by lighting the video in rich, saturated tones.
A red clay court was a must as homage to the red clay found in Atlanta’s soil, where Gunna (and Gauff) were born and where the video was filmed in late September. Jordan then laid a Persian rug motif on top, drawing inspiration from the rarity and regality of the world-renowned court at Il San Pietro di Positano, a luxury hotel built into the cliffs along the Amalfi Coast.
Securing Gauff’s participation was more straightforward than he thought it would be. Jordan reached out through a mutual connection in the industry and discovered Gauff was already a fan of Gunna’s music.
Her interest in fashion was another plus. Gauff is an ambassador for Miu Miu and her tennis apparel sponsor, New Balance, has collaborated with the brand on custom kits. Gunna is a longtime fan of the fashion label, and Jordan worked with stylists Bobby Wesley and Jenna Tyson to put a spin on tennis prep.
Jordan was particularly enamored by the knee-high boots Tyson pulled for Gauff’s on-court look — before he knew about the sartorial connection to a famous Serena Williams look from the 2004 U.S. Open that also featured knee-high boots and a voluminous mini skirt.
“It was a mixing of surreal with reality. She’d never wear those on a tennis court, but she wouldn’t be playing tennis on a court that had this Persian rug as the floor and a chandelier above it either,” Jordan said.
Jordan was impressed by Gauff’s professionalism on set the day of the shoot — and by how quickly she was in and out of the glam chair. He recalled the generosity she showed to the young actors playing ball kids on set, including a casual conversation that became a motivational moment for one of them, who is also a football player.
“She was just talking to him as if she knew what questions he needed to hear to keep him fully focused on becoming the best possible player, you know what I’m saying? It was cool to see her engage with that,” Jordan said.
Gunna and Jordan also got an up-close look at Gauff’s talent on the tennis court. They didn’t ask her for a full-blown lesson, but Gunna did actually manage to get a racket on one of Gauff’s serves, and Jordan asked if she could hit a ball straight at the camera lens for the shot at the start of the video.
“The first time, it was very close, and it almost hit me. I was like, ‘Whoa, let me back up,’” Jordan said, laughing. “I backed up three, four feet and she hit it smack dab on the lens, second try.
“It was crazy. She was in her element.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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