As a little girl, roleplaying is an essential part of forming an identity. With your friends, maybe you choose which Powerpuff Girl you relate to the most or debate the merits of each Breakfast Club character. When you’re a girl, the possibilities of who you could be are endless; by the time you’re an adult woman, you’re supposed to have it all figured out. But on her full-length debut, Girls, the 22-year-old Atlanta singer/rapper/producer Yung Baby Tate applies the limitless imagination of childhood to a concept album about exploring different identities. The track titles sound like characters from a budget female superhero flick: “Bad Girl,” “Flower Girl,” or “Pretty Girl.” Tate flexes all her modes, too, delivering silky R&B vocals, sassy bubblegum-popping bars, and pop-punky chants. Entirely self-produced, Girls is a playful exploration of all the facets of femininity that any one girl—or woman—can possess.
The many alter-egos of Nicki Minaj were an influential blueprint for Tate’s character survey. Tate practically sounds like a Minaj clone in sections of “Bad Girl,” too, and adopts her sex-positive lewdness on the Gucci Mane-interpolating “Freaky Girl.” Just as quickly as she flips Nicki on, though, she can pivot to a Lil Uzi Vert-esque emo rap cadence for the outro of “Cozy Girl” or a croon that ranges from syrupy like Kehlani (“Lover Girl”) to whispery like Kelela (“New Girl”).
During clear standout “That Girl,” Tate doesn’t assume any specific character. She’s just that girl—the captain of the cheerleading squad, perhaps, or the ringleader of the popular clique, like Regina George in Mean Girls. “Woke up feeling awfully cocky/Who the fuck gon’ stop me?/Baby, I’m a job, you a hobby,” she raps with glee, letting out a tiny squeal after each line. You can practically hear her flipping her hair behind the microphone. Tate is fun when she’s alluding to icons and archetypes, but she’s thrilling when she’s just being herself, as she is here.
Tate’s vision gets a little blurry when it comes to production, however. “New Girl” blends new wave and early 2000s pop without much edge, while “Hot Girl” dips into the vague zone of deep house. She is a little more successful shifting toward Charli XCX’s PC Music-produced future pop on “That Girl” or playing with Grimes-inspired electro candy. Her experimentation is ambitious, expanding far from the sonic palette of her 2018 EP Boys, but most of these references never crystallize into something more.
On the other hand, the only features on Girls are from fellow black female rappers—a pointed and welcome move, considering they are often pitted against each other. Tate spotlights fellow slick-tongued Atlanta rap queens Killumantii and Mulatto for “Pretty Girl (Remix).” With a warm voice suggesting Sampha, Atlanta’s Baby Rose contributes a stunning verse to the heart-bearing “Lover Girl.” Chattanooga’s BbyMutha practically steals the show with her dexterous bars on “Wild Girl,” while Little Rock’s Kari Faux adds a calming presence to closer “Hot Girl.” Tate’s collaborators collectively push against mainstream expectations of female rappers, making a bold statement that black girls are not some monolith. While she gets help from her friends to make that point, Tate ultimately does it for herself. When she sings a short snippet of Chaka Khan’s 1978 anthem, “I’m Every Woman” for the outro of “That Girl,” her philosophy comes into focus: She’s every woman, and you can be, too.
