Ten years ago, in 2014, DeJ Loaf seemed to be on the cusp of superstardom. The Detroit rapper broke out that year with her syrupy hit “Try Me,” and while she threatened to kill off all of our “haters,” her angelic harmonies made me laugh. fascinated us. She then jumped on Eminem’s “Detroit vs. Everybody” and released a platinum single with Big Sean, Lil Durk, Kid Ink, and Future. She had the image and unique voice to become a rap heavyweight, but her releases have become sparse since then. Until recently, she had only released a handful of singles in the past four years.
Her album End of Summer, released Oct. 11, shows she still has it figured out. The self-proclaimed studio rat told me that although he’s been away from the public eye, he’s been recording for a long time, and there’s plenty of music to come.
“Honestly, I’m behind, so I’m like, ‘Oh, I owe you all this,’ and now it’s nonstop for me,” she says. “We’re not going to just flood[the market]but we’re going to shower them with good music. They’re definitely looking forward to getting a couple more projects over the next year. I’m not going to quit, especially with the team I have now… guys that care and have shown us that we can do things.”
She’s not one to reveal details about her personal life, but when asked about the biggest lessons of her career, she says some of her past partnerships could have been more fruitful. Notice how everyone wants to help and be friends. You just have to be careful about your own strength. ” She admits: I learned to trust myself and not be naive. I had to relearn that. ”
The idea came to her while quarantining at home in Los Angeles during the height of the coronavirus quarantine, which she says was “the worst.” The woman, born Dejah Trimble, says she has always been lonely, but when her life stopped, her personal struggles were exacerbated. Her debut LP, Sell Sole II, released in October 2020, received solid reviews from fans but failed to chart. “I feel like people didn’t take the album very well,” she reflects. The project was canceled a year after she broke up with Columbia Records, but for reasons still unknown, she decided it was necessary to leave after Columbia Records cut off its support for her. (Representatives for the label did not respond to requests for comment.)
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She says Liberated, the album she’s been promised since at least 2016, was “almost finished” when she was still signed to Columbia, but she can’t understand what’s stopping it from being released. It is said that there was not. “I’ve watched all my colleagues rise and get opportunities, but I feel left out in the dirt,” she says. That includes “many people I’ve come up with,” essentially “leaving me for dead.”
She said her doldrums caused her to feel unwell and have a “look in the mirror” moment. I have to fix this. ” However, she declined to be specific about what those were in the interview, saying, “I’m going to talk about it at some point.” DeJ says this period taught her to stop seeking external approval. “When you seek self, you find more within yourself.” She also stopped comparing herself to other artists’ career trajectories. “Because who said you were supposed to be on[other artists]before you were on, or who said they were going to be on forever?”
Armed with that mindset, she continued to focus on making music, eventually returning to her hometown of Detroit in 2023. She recalls that Atlanta and Los Angeles felt a little like home, but nothing compared to her hometown of the Motor City. “I feel like I experienced everything I needed to during this time,” she says. “You can take it home once in a while.”
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She is still loved in her hometown. In July, he brought Flint-raised boxer Claressa Shields into the ring, performed “Try Me” to thunderous applause, and the undefeated boxer knocked out her opponent, Vanessa Lepage-Joanis, in the second round. did. “I love being here,” she says. “I love being able to go out and it’s not a big deal. The city has changed a lot and it’s really nice.”
DeJ Loaf has recorded multiple hard drives worth of music over the past five years, making narrowing down the songs for his next album a difficult process. She says the sequencing of End of Summer was so meticulous that Apple Music didn’t get the final version of the album until after midnight on the day of release. The project was originally titled Red Summer and then Summer Begins, but she ultimately decided to change the title to Summer’s End to coincide with the October release date. “I feel like this is my season,” she says. “Everyone’s coming off the summer and snuggling and cuddling. It’s all those feelings.”
Those sentiments will resonate throughout the end of summer. She’s a sweetheart girl on the sultry “BNB/DTB,” which earned her a “Faded” on 2Chainz, and the flashy “MIAMI FLOW,” where she tells listeners, “They can’t fuck with you, you know shit.” he said. Two back-to-back songs from later albums, “Light It Up” and “Ride On Me,” embody the DeJ Loaf experience. The first song has her growling over an updated version of breezy ’90s R&B, while the next song says that if you ignore her, “Like my last CD, you’ll be in the hood.” The whole thing will want you,” he warns.
The album’s many collaborators have mostly come from within the past year. DeJ was looking for the perfect song for Kash Doll to sing and decided the confident “Ladies Leave Your Man At Home” was the perfect song. She also said that the album’s final song, “Ball On My Side,” was one of the album’s best storytelling moments, with herself, NoCap, Lil Poppa, and Hunxho getting introspective. . Overall, End of Summer is a collection of eclectic songs that showcase DeJ’s immense and, to her eyes, breadth of talent.
In the album’s intro, “Dangerous,” she sings, “I started some trends, but I wasn’t recognized.” In fact, many people echo Oakland rapper Kamaiyah’s sentiments. He surmised in 2019 that “DeJ Loaf has really captivated kids. Her style is the most replicated in the game.” It’s easy to take credit for rap’s focus on melody and the variety of approaches to it. But several artists have added significant modern rap appeal, and DeJ Loaf’s early work on tapes like Sell Sole and All Jokes Aside in particular put her in that kitchen. As for being ignored, “people try to keep me as a hidden gem so they can keep stealing sources,” DeJ theorizes. But she added: It upsets me sometimes. I’m no longer bitter about it because I’m going to keep doing what I’m supposed to do. ”
Even if some underestimate her influence, others agree with City Girls rapper JT, who once sang “Try Me” on social media and told viewers: “Young soft-ass hoes were raised on it, but bitch, this is what I was raised on!” DeJ inserted a clip of the video at the beginning of his album “GOOD A$$ DAY” with HBK.
JT represents a generation of fans who were entering early adulthood when DeJ Loaf first hit the industry. They were there when DAZED rightfully called her “the world’s most exciting new rapper.” DeJ Loaf’s supple voice and gritty lyrics have helped her excel in a world of rap that has always been obsessed with making menace seem playfully delicious. She has the charm of 50 Cent’s early mixtape remixes, but looks as delicate as he looked like Diesel. It’s impossible to see the success of melodic artists like A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Rod Wave, and NBA Youngboy touring arenas and topping the charts, and if her With his experience with the label, I can’t see a world with DeJ with them either. It has become more ideal.
“I definitely saw[myself]staying that long in the game,” she says. In terms of “trying to live up to expectations,” he said, “I think people had expectations, but I think it was cut short for me.” She ultimately concludes: “It’s hard to live up to people’s expectations. You have to be yourself.”
One of the main themes of our conversation is that DeJ doesn’t give in to what people ask of her, including information about her personal life. In July, photos of her at a club with her girlfriend surfaced, seemingly confirming long-standing rumors about her sexuality. “Everyone says, ‘I knew it, I knew it!'” she says. “And it’s like, ‘Of course.’ That’s the same thing I was saying. I knew that too.” In 2015, when asked about her preferences, she told BET, ” That’s it.” She says she’s annoyed by onlookers speculating about her love life. “I felt like people tended to try to do voice-overs,” she says. “For too long I’ve let them tell me who I am, and they still don’t know…I’m happy with who I am.”
I wish other people were the same. Society is still too heteronormative, and figures like DeJ, whose fashion sense blends femininity and subtle masculinity, confuse those who still confuse gender identity and sexuality. . DeJ explores romance in her music, so fans have a right to know who she’s talking about. Yet she rarely tries to give her fans the mythology they crave. Back in 2015, she told The Fader: “Everyone is poking fun at me, but I feel like it’s just a small part of me that they want to know.”
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DeJ wants to be confident in himself and advocate for everyone to accept themselves and for society to accept others. “It’s about being yourself,” she says. “I think a lot of people struggle with feeling like they have to act a certain way because of their masculinity and femininity,” she adds. A manly woman. The same goes for men. ”
DeJ wants to be a light for young girls and is committed to doing so through a more consistent stream of music. She says she wants to explore not only her own music, but also songwriting for others. And she’s also working on developing artists, including two of her cousins who form the aptly titled duo “My Cousins.” “I think I have a bigger purpose than this, so I stopped worrying,” she says. “I used to be really depressed about my career and I was like, ‘No, forget it.’ I don’t want to be sad about music anymore. That’s not what music is about. I didn’t start it.”
