Released in 2012 and titled Just Do It, Deja Trimble's first mixtape was loyal to the well-established backpacker tradition in Detroit. By then, the young woman had a unisex style, she was on the introspective side of hip-hop, and she had beats with an undeniable boom bap flavor. As a result, she seemed fated to stay for a long time in the underground.
A couple of years later, though, Dej Loaf – her stage name comes from a passion for loafers – joins Columbia Records, she raps alongside her city's superstar, Eminem, on his Shady XV compilation, she earns a place in the 2015 promotion of XXL's Freshmen, and she tours with Nicki Minaj.
This sudden rise a reason called "Try Me". Such is titled her defining song. Released in 2014, this single met some success, that Drake amplified when he shared it on Instagram.
On it, the frail and young lady changes attitude: she turns aggressive. She talks about guns, money and cocaine, and she assaults her enemies - or more exactly, she turns them into macaroni. She shares her passion for alcohol, and she calls boys "bitches" or "hoes". In addition, she uses a simple and heady melody, not dissimilar to those used in drill music, though she talks more slowly, and on moodier sounds.
Released a few months later, Sell Sole doesn't capitalize too much on that single. It is placed at its end, in a remixed version with Remy Ma and Ty Dolla $ign. The mixtape, nevertheless, consecrates the new Deja. That one, indeed, seems programed for success. She is an up-and-coming star, who joins forces with Birdman and Young Thug on a track making allegiance to gang life – to the Bloods, more exactly.
As soon as with the intense "Bird Call", Dej Loaf shows up as an angry mobster. With "On My Own", another Sell Sole highlight, she claims she is her own self. On "Grinding", she displays her hunger for success. On "Easy Love", she takes full ownership of her sexuality, saying bluntly to her partner: "open up your mouth, put this pussy on your face".
However, like on "Try Me", her ruthlessness is counterbalanced by some brooding sounds. Dej Loaf even turns R&B on "Never", another song about ambition, as well as on "Me U & Hennessy", about a threesome with her, her boyfriend, and alcohol. And at times, she is intimate, like on "I Got It", a grievance about her cousin's and grandmother's deaths.
At the end of day, both Def Loafs are on Sell Sole: the ghetto chick whose father was killed and whose family is for a large part imprisoned; and the shy girl who, when she was a kid, escaped the harsh realities of life through her diary.