Ten years ago, in 2014, Breakfast Bread seemed on the verge of superstardom. THE Detroit The rapper broke out that year with “Try Me,” a syrupy hit where her angelic harmonies captivate us even as she threatens to kill our entire “family.” After that, she hopped on Eminem’s “Detroit vs. Everybody,” then released platinum singles with Big Sean, Lil Durk, Kid Ink and Future. She had the image and distinctive voice to become a rap heavyweight, but her releases subsequently became rarer. Until recently, she had only released a few singles in the previous four years.

End of summerthe album she released on October 11, shows that she still has it. The self-proclaimed studio rat tells me that even though she’s stayed out of the public eye, she’s still been recording and there’s plenty more music coming.

“Honestly, I’m late, so I’m just like, ‘Yo, I owe you all this.’ It’s non-stop for me now,” she says. “I don’t want to just flood (the market), but we’re going to flood them with good music. They could certainly hope to complete two or three additional projects over the next year. I have no plans to stop, especially with the team I have now… People who care about me and show me that we can make things happen.

She’s not one to reveal the details of her personal life, but when I ask her about the biggest lessons of her career, she says some of her past partnerships could have been more successful: “Be careful who you hang out with . (Be aware) of how everyone (says) they want to help you or want to be your friend. You just have to be aware of your power. She admits: “I got a little lost in letting others drive and navigate my life. I learned to trust myself and not be naive. I had to relearn that.

This reflection came while she was quarantining at home in Los Angeles during the heat of the Covid quarantine, a time she says was “horrible.” The woman born Deja Trimble says she was always a loner, but the hiatus from life amplified the personal qualms she faced. His first LP, Sell ​​Sole II, released in October 2020, received strong reception from fans but failed to chart. “I feel like people didn’t receive the album well,” she reflects. The project was abandoned a year after her split with Columbia Records, a departure she deemed necessary after she said they had stopped supporting her for reasons she still had not identified. (A representative for the label did not respond to a request for comment.)

Releasedthe album she had been promising since at least 2016, was “pretty much finished” while she was still signed to Columbia, according to her, but she didn’t understand what was stopping it from being released. “I was watching all of my peers rise up and seize opportunities and I felt like I was being left behind,” she says — including “a lot of people that I met,” essentially “leaving me for dead”.

She says her slump led to breakdowns and “looking in the mirror” moments where she asked herself, “What are you doing?” We have to solve this problem. But she refrains from elaborating on these things during our interview, noting that she “will talk about it one day.” DeJ says this period taught him to stop looking for outside acceptance: “When you look for yourself, you find more within. » She also stopped comparing herself to other artists’ career paths, “because who said you were supposed to be around before (another artist), or who said he was going to be around forever?” »

Armed with this mindset, she remained focused on creating music, before returning to her hometown of Detroit in 2023. She believes that Atlanta and Los Angeles felt a bit like home, but couldn’t get along. compare to his native Motor City. “I feel like I experienced everything I needed to during that time,” she says. “Sometimes you have to take him home.”

She is still loved in her home country. In July, she accompanied Flint-raised boxer Claressa Shields to the ring to loud applause, performing “Try Me” before the undefeated pugilist knocked out opponent Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse in the second round. “I love being here,” she said. “I love being able to go out and it’s no big deal. And the city has changed so much so it’s nice.

DeJ Loaf has recorded music on multiple hard drives over the past five years, making the process of selecting songs for his next album arduous. She says that sequencing End of summer was so meticulous that Apple Music didn’t receive the final version of the album until after midnight on its release day. The project was initially titled red summerSO Beginning of summer, but she ultimately decided to align the title with the October release date and call it End of summer. “I feel like it’s my season,” she says. “Everyone ends the summer scrambling and cuddling. It’s all these emotions.

These emotions resonate everywhere End of summer. She’s a lover on the sultry “BNB/DTB,” she gets “Faded” with 2Chainz and tells listeners “they can’t fuck with you, you know it’s you” on the flashy “MIAMI FLOW.” The latest album, a two-song sequence of “Light It Up” and “Ride On Me,” exemplifies the DeJ Loaf experience. The first song shows her singing along to an updated version of light ’90s R&B, while on the next track she warns that “the whole neighborhood will want you, like my last CD” if you upset her.

The album’s many collaborators mostly formed over the past year. DeJ was looking for the best song for Kash Doll to play and decided that the confident “Ladies Leave Your Man At Home” seemed like the right one. She also tells me that album closer, “Ball On My Side,” is one of the album’s best storytelling moments, with herself, NoCap, Lil Poppa, and Hunxho getting introspective. Overall, End of summer is a versatile collection of songs that showcase the extent of DeJ’s considerable – and in his eyes, overlooked – talent.

On the album intro “Dangerous”, she sings, “started a few trends and I didn’t get recognized.” Indeed, many share the sentiment of Oakland rapper Kamaiyah, who in 2019 assumed“DeJ Loaf really appealed to the kids, his style is the most replicated in the game.” It’s easy to attribute rap’s emphasis on melody and its different approaches to one person. But a few artists added heavily to the gumbo of modern rap and DeJ Loaf’s early productions, especially on tapes like Sell ​​a sole And All jokes asideput her in this kitchen. When it comes to being ignored, DeJ theorizes that “people try to keep me like a hidden gem so they can keep stealing the sauce.” But she adds: “Then again, I don’t know, I can’t really call him. This bothers me sometimes. I’m past the bitterness stage because I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing.

Although some underestimate his influence, others agree with City Girls rapper JT, who once turned to social media to sing “Try Me” and tell viewers, “I was raised on DeJ Loaf, I don’t know what you little sweet ass hoes were raised on, but bitch, that’s what I been with pupil!” DeJ placed a snippet of the video at the beginning of the album “GOOD A$$ DAY” featuring HBK.

JT speaks for a generation of fans who were coming of age when DeJ Loaf was making his rise in the industry. They were there When STUNNED rightly, she called her “the most exciting new rapper in the world.” DeJ Loaf’s supple vocals and gritty lyrics have helped him excel in a rap world that has always been obsessed with making menace palatable. It has the appeal of 50 Cent’s early mixtape remixes, except it looks as delicate as he looked diesel. It’s impossible to see the arena tours and success of melodic artists like A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Rod Wave and NBA Youngboy, and not see a world in which DeJ would be right up there with them if his experience in a major label had been left more ideally.

“I really saw myself having that longevity in the game,” she says. “I think people had expectations, but I think that was cut short very early on for me” in terms of “trying to live up to it.” Ultimately, she concludes: “It’s hard to meet people’s expectations. I must live up to yours.

One of the main themes of our conversation is that DeJ doesn’t succumb to what people expect of her, including information about her personal life. In July, photos surfaced of her at a club with her girlfriend, appearing to confirm long-standing rumors about her sexuality. “Everyone says, ‘I knew it, I knew it!’ “, she said. “And it’s like, ‘Duh.’ It’s the same thing I was saying. I knew it too. In 2015, when asked about her preferences, she told BET: “It is what it is. » She says she was annoyed by the way viewers speculated about her love life. “I just felt like people had this thing (of) trying to tell a story,” she says. “I let them talk about who I was for too long. And they still don’t know it… I’m comfortable with who I am.

If only the others were too. Society is still too heteronormative, and someone like DeJ, whose fashion sense combines femininity and subtle machismo, confuses people who still confuse gender identity and sexuality. DeJ explores romance in her music, which gives fans the right to know who she’s talking about. Undeterred, she rarely seeks to feed her fans with the mythography they crave. In 2015, she said Molten, “Everyone picks on me, but I feel like the things they want to know are just the smallest details about me.”

Secure in herself, DeJ wants to 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 suffer from feeling like they have to be a certain way because of their masculinity and femininity.” She adds: “You don’t need to feel crazy for wanting to get your nails done if you’re a masculine woman. And it’s the same for men too.

DeJ wants to be that beacon for young girls — and she promises to do it through a more consistent flow of music. In addition to her own music, she says she would like to explore writing songs for others. And she also works on developing artists, including two of her cousins ​​who form the aptly titled duo My Cousins. “I think I have a bigger goal outside of that. That’s why I stopped worrying,” she says. “I was so depressed about my career and I was like, ‘No, forget it.’ I never want to be sad about music again. That’s not what music is for. That’s not why I started.