Wednesday April 8, 1998       By day, she's Diana Armstrong,
single mom and journalism major at a historically African
American university in Atlanta. At night, she's Diana Diamond
and she takes off her clothes and dances for dollars at a strip
joint as raucous as the movie with which it shares its name,
"The Players Club."      As conceived by rapper-actor Ice Cube,
who wrote, directed and co-produced the film, Diamond conveys
some of the Mama-don't-take-no-mess confidence of such
"blaxploitation" heroines of the 1970s as "Foxy Brown" and
"Coffy." She can duke it out, even shoot it out, if the
situation requires.      Implausible as such a superwoman might
sound, there's enough charm, conviction and charisma in the
performance of newcomer LisaRaye to make you believe in and root
for Diamond in her dubious struggle for dignity in undignified
surroundings.      Yet one is moved to ask, once again, where
Hollywood comes by this impulse for casting beautiful black
women as strippers: Vivica A. Fox in "Independen