IN retrospect, the question posed to dancehall deejay Pamputtae couldn’t have been any more innocent: “My girl, we hear seh you slim down. When yuh coming in so that we can tek some new pictures?”

There was a loud silence on the phone. The seconds ticked away. Then the explosion came. The fluffy-and-loving-it deejay went ‘ballistic’.

“Mi!” Pamputtae exclaimed incredulously. “Slim dung?” she asked, somehow managing to make the two words sound like totally offensive, almost like indecent language.

“What!” she said and we could almost see her shaking her head in disbelief.

“Mi still big,” the deejay said with tonnes of pride. “Mi belly hang ova same way … mi still t(h)ick and can flick and do di tings dem,” Pamputtae assured.

“A me a represent fi all a di fluffy ladies dem inna di dancehall, yuh nuh. How mi fi go slim dung? Whoever tell yuh so a bad mine dem bad mine!” she said dismissively.

Pamputtae is currently riding a crest of popularity with the song Slim vs Fluffy, a combination with popular deejay, Spice, in which each seeks to outdo the other by extolling the virtues of the slim girl (Spice) and the fluffy girl (Pamputtae). “The song a tek life. It haffi play more than one time in the dance,” Pamputtae explained, adding that at a recent show in Canada, she and Spice were the toasts of the town. In fact, at the just-concluded Caribbean Fashionweek, which, for the first time, featured plus size models, the song was used to open the Sandra Kennedy collection, as the models paraded the shouts of approval were deafening.

Known for her ample size, which she uses to her advantage, Pamputtae has staked her claim as the female deejay to “represent fi di fluffy girl dem”, having borrowed the term coined by radio personality, Miss Kitty.

“Which other fat girl inna di business a hold it up?” she asked. “Just think bout it. A me a di ongle female artiste a carry di banner fi di fluffy girl dem. That’s why the fluffy and slimmy song tek off … it gone to the next level,” she said.

Pamputtae, the best new female awardee for the year 2008, signalled her entrance into the dancehall with a song which proclaimed her goodness — It Goodie Goodie — and which found a responsive chord with “all di goodas gal dem”. With an airplay version and another more popular cut which quite likely managed to contravene the Broadcasting Commission’s entire list of ‘dont’s, the song, catapulted Pamputtae to fame within the dancehall. On rapid, she fired off a list of underground hits which cemented her status as one of dancehall’s ‘baddest gyals’.

“Dah weight yah a no normal weight,” she boasted. “It badda dan AIDS and cancer. Dah weight yah cyaan create.”

According to Pamputtae, she has defied all the odds, because when she just entered the business she was told that with her weight there was no way she could break through.

“Everywhere mi turn everybody a tell me say me too fat and me must go lose weight, but here I am. A nuff hungry mi bear and it’s my time to eat now. Mi a go always seh fluffy,” she declared.

By the way, just how heavy is that weight Pamputtae is carrying around?

“Mi weigh 210 pounds … and memba seh mi short,” she pointed out. “But mi legs dem thick and, as the man dem seh, ‘Dah girl yah stand up strong inna har trousers’.”