Seeing as how Slayyyter has been blessed with a more meteoric rise of late thanks to the release of her third album, WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, she felt confident/generous enough when it came to “servicing” her fans to release a single called “Broke Bitch Freestyle” (or “BROKE BITCH FREE$TYLE”). An aggressive little ditty that’s been kicking around since at least 2024, when Slayyyter first tweeted the lyrics and then premiered the track about a month later during her Boiler Room set in September.
Intended to be featured on the inevitable deluxe edition of WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, Slayyyter released a visualizer to go with it. One that showcases her, via a medium shot, “going berserk” (to borrow a phrase from “Broke Bitch Freestyle”) while sporting a trucker hat (with the song title’s phrase on it) in front of an American flag. Albeit an American flag that is “Slayyyter-ified,” for it bears the dollar sign that she’s been using as the “S” for every printed word during this era, including, of course, her name. And yes, it’s definitely something that 2010 to 2012-era Ke$ha did first—for the same reason Slayyyter is doing it now: she found it to be “tongue-in-cheek”/ironic because of how broke she actually was when she first started out.
In that spirit, Slayyyter told Nicky Reardon on his Nicky at Night podcast, “This dollar sign symbol feels like, it’s almost like a parody or something.” Hence, her desire to feature it prominently for the “Broke Bitch Freestyle” visualizer, her erratic movements and lyrical “freestyling” framed against the backdrop of the flag in such a way so that it almost looks like it was plucked from Lana Del Rey’s 2011 photoshoot taken by Bella Howard (and published in the January 2012 edition of NME).
To be sure, Del Rey remains almost synonymous with American flags (despite how much that “symbol” has taken a dive in the twenty-first century), having been photographed or filmed with them numerous times throughout her career (the “Ride” video in particular also comes to mind). And even long before she was famous, with “Lizzy Grant” (her “true” self) also being photographically documented wearing American flag-patterned clothes. This at a time (from 2007 to about 2009/2010) when she was also at the peak of adhering to her trailer park fetish by actually living in one. Specifically, the Manhattan Mobile Home Park in North Bergen, New Jersey.
It was during this period that she wrote “Trash Magic” (also known as “Miss America”), a song during which Grant declares, “All that’s real to me is trailer parks and beaches/Alabama breezes/Platinum and peaches, honey/I wanna fly, I wanna fly, I wanna fly.” “Yayo,” a song that eventually made it into Del Rey’s oeuvre (and not just Grant’s) was also written in 2007, with Grant mentioning a trailer park again via the lyric, “You have to take me right now/From this dark trailer park life now.” Slayyyter, however, seems to want nothing more than to stay tied to that kind of “broke bitch” lifestyle the higher she climbs. For even though everyone thinks they want fame and fortune, they also want to maintain their “street cred” at the same time.
Something that is all but impossible once a musician reaches a certain echelon of fame. Even so, Slayyyter opens the track with, “Let me tell you something. I’m not no fucking cowboy. I’m a fucking hillbilly. There’s a fucking difference, okay? There’s a goddamn difference.” This being a sample from a drunk phone call Slayyyter had with a “hometown friend” named Sam DeClue, whose “hillbilly” take on things “sums this record up perfectly,” as Slayyyter herself said.
As do evocative lyrics like, “I’m a broke bitch, I’m a star/Maxed out credit card, I’m a broke bitch/Caviar, breakfast on the floor.” While this might be closer to “Kesha Del Reyness” (the best phrase for describing the mashup of Slayyyter’s two key influences on WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA), it’s another line in the song that has Slayyyter going full-on Lizzy Grant: “Got these sunglasses from the gas station/South Florida is where I’m at to take vacation.” For it’s no secret that, as part of her hard-on for “Americana,” Del Rey had (and has) something of a gas station “kink,” first immortalizing it as Lizzy Grant with the song “Queen of the Gas Station.” A title Slayyyter is clearly trying to come for as she now even has a song called “Gas Station” (one of the best tracks on WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA).
Indeed, at this point, it’s become hardly a coincidence that Slayyyter’s lyrics and aesthetics are extremely reminiscent to those of the Del Rey (and now Grant) canon. Even the trailer she released for her album reeked of Del Rey (especially her “Ride” video). Not just the fireworks in the sky (very “National Anthem”) or the vintage-looking wedding dress and veil (very “Ultraviolence”) or the tiaras (a staple of certain Del Rey photoshoots). But also the deliberate parading of “all-American” milieus. In other words, places and environments that can’t help but look lusterless and trashy because that’s what the “real” America is. And that’s where Slayyyter grew up.
Del Rey, on the other hand, didn’t necessarily experience quite as authentic of an experience on that front as Lake Placid is not only idyllic, but generally well-to-do (though Del Rey has been known to insist to the contrary). As for the “Heartland” where Slayyyter grew up, well, it’s the true essence of what the United States “is.” Which is why the more famous (de facto, rich) Slayyyter gets, the further away she’ll get from this region not just geographically, but “spiritually.” For it doesn’t seem likely that she’ll pull a Del Rey and move to the bayou to prove her commitment to “trash magic.”
Though that doesn’t mean she can’t still claim, “Trashy girls, I love it.” Even if, like Del Rey, what she truly loves about “it” (i.e., trashy girls) now is pulling from their aesthetic and attitude as opposed to living a genuinely trashy life that could actually back up a statement such as, “I’m a broke bitch,” along with lyrics that assure, “Cowboy boots, rollin’ in the dirt/Talkin’ my own shit, never rich.” Ah, but that just isn’t the situation anymore (though, to be fair, Slayyyter wrote this back in 2024, well before she truly “blew up”).
In this regard, Slayyyter and Del Rey now have even more in common in that they keep pronouncing that they’re just “simple,” “down-home” women when that’s an impossible thing to be as a person with beaucoup de dough. But one imagines Slayyyter will now just liken herself to a Beverly Hillbilly rather than ever admit she’s no longer “trashy” (a.k.a. a broke bitch). As is kind of the case with Del Rey.
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