Mixtape Review: Diary of a Young Lit B*tch by PLUTO
On another tape for Motown, PLUTO writes from the spender’s seat in Atlanta strip-club rap and sorts the men by what they’ll pay.
In strip-club rap, money has a clear agenda. Moving from the men at the railing to the women working the floor, the track itself belongs to whoever is being funded or who’s getting put on the run. The Atlanta artist PLUTO (aka Big P) reverses this script. She measures out her own funds prior to opening her lips, and the men in Diary of a Young Lit B*tch, her Motown mixtape, do the asking of her. Who gets her time is up to her.
Most do not qualify. She wants a trap nigga to teach her to flip a brick, a rich nigga “who in double figures,” a dope boy “with a fast car, pay all cash, no note.” There is absolutely no tolerance for the ones who only look the part. “I hate a nigga who rich on Instagram, but in real life, he broke,” PLUTO states on “Where Dey At,” a chorus that transforms The Candler into an actual casting call, “He know that I’m the queen, get anything, if he ain’t spendin’, he can go.” The cover charge is discussed directly, with absolutely no apology about the price, “Can’t court the queen without no green/Hit the bank before you hit me, bitch, or keep it movin’.” When one of the men inquires what she paid to sleep with him, the answer on “I Ain’t Pay Nan” is pretty evident, “He ask me how much I paid to hit, bitch, I ain’t pay a thing.” It’s apparent that PLUTO has money in the safe and money in the bank, and wants her rap friends to keep her out of it, because she ain’t on that.
Just as important as what she demands of the men, she wants from the women too. The negotiation unfolds on “Tippy Toes” from the first moment, “Bend it over and spread it wide/Then climb on top,” with the threesome coming directly from her before the rest, “And bring your best friend, if you on that, then I need that.” With rent money accounted for both at Magic City and the Pin, PLUTO is “deep up in them yams, it feel like Thanksgiving.” On “Dats My Bitch,” she appropriates someone else’s woman, “If that’s your ho, make her my bitch,” and hungry women get their due, “This pussy good, heard you starvin’, let me feed you,” as the bail for a stranger is paid, mid-bar, without even missing a beat.
She is funniest when she has money on hand. A Jeffrey Dahmer reference blurs past in “I Fell In Luv,” “Can’t eat off his plate, no Jeffery,” buried in a hook where she falls in love with her wrist, then a woman, then the blue cheese mixed with green salad, then the empty plate. Under the flexing is that line that turns the joke from clever into savage, “I love that they knew I was poor, now I be chillin’ when rent due.” She presents a windfall similarly as a shrug on “What You Know,” “It’s crazy how I rap for fun and made a mil’ before the new year,” then removes a broke man from the equation, “You too busy bein’ broke, I’m stuffin’ racks inside this purse.” When a “pick-me-ass ho” starts asking to be selected, an answer comes from the beach, “I’m in Jamaica, got your nigga,” another woman’s boyfriend already on holiday.
The name is something else she cannot stop instating. She formed her persona from being doubted, and that is the one element she refuses to let go, “All these hoes that count me out and thought that I was finished,” she raps on “Never Been,” “I’m back again, I’m on y’all ass, I’m fuckin’ up the city,” then slaps it with, “Big P the biggest in this shit.” The boast carries a ZIP code, “From Zone 1 to Zone 6, you gotta know we step on shit,” she proclaims on “Right Now,” which she then illustrates by showing up thirty strong in a red Corvette, declaring herself to be a renegade, off the Don, a self-coined phrase and a brand she intends to own. The same chin dominates “Shake Something,” where “This face card tea, lil’ bitch, your nigga love this face” appears one line above “fuck 12,” and the toll it takes to be readmitted. On those boast songs, her persona is unshakeable.
It is only in the pure violence songs that it waivers. On “Push Up On Me,” the taunt, “Push up on me or shut the fuck up/Push up on me, lil’ scary bitch,” is almost passable. However, the swagger with which she divides men by how wealthy they are dwindles to stale drill menace once all there is to listen to is her threats. On “Take Um Down” she is more serious, detailing a violent revenge as if reciting from a storybook with little breath, about his body, about wanting his head, “Bitch, I’ma eat his face for dinner,” he goes down thirty and his body splashes into the river. Even as blood flows, her character resurfaces, “Got me mistaken for a stripper, bitch, I’m not a stripper,” and in this moment, this hint of Big P, she sounds most alive.
On “Waga Waga” she scans one more room, identifying “Fine brownskin” and “lil’ red, face so pretty, body tea” while assessing who wants the queen, and, just a few sentences later, there’s a gun shoved in her skirt, the fifty in her purse, a score to settle, “Send lil’ twin for revenge, took her nigga, now she hurt.” Her need, her money, and her violent proclivities come together as if they’re just one thought, the boasts following closely, “These bitches mad that I’m the biggest.” Three aspects coexist simultaneously without diminishing one another.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “I Ain’t Pay Nan,” “Where Dey At,” “What You Know”