After ‘Try Me’ hit, people were like, ‘Wow, why didn’t she tell anybody she had this side?’ ” Through Dej’s high school career however, she’s had flashes of creativity that have carried over to today. “I stayed to myself mostly and people didn’t even know I did music. (She still hasn’t had the chance to meet him in person yet.) “In high school, I was the quiet kid,” Dej says of the irony of her fame. For Dej, that someone came in the form of Drake, who uploaded an Instagram post of some “Try Me” lyrics, and with Drizzy’s stamp of approval, Dej’s star skyrocketed further from there. As long as I could create music I didn’t care.” It was that aforementioned group of fans in Northern California who helped Dej rise above the pack of countless underground rappers who pray to get noticed by someone in the upper echelons of the genre who has the power to launch careers. I didn’t have any children, it was just me. “I was just chilling and focusing on my music. “At the time, I had left my job and had no cash,” she says. The song’s viral success was first spurred by kids in the San Francisco Bay Area who fervently posted about the song online and the resulting notoriety earned Dej a fanbase fresh off of quitting her custodial gig at a plant that manufactured Chryslers. Did I think it was going to change my life? Nope.” I’d usually write throughout the week and record during the weekend, but for some reason, after I wrote ‘Try Me,’ I wanted to get to the studio as soon as I could. “I thought it was dope and I wanted to record it so bad. (Her unofficial debut came with the 2012 mixtape, Just Do It.) “I definitely did know that the song is special,” she remembers. When Dej first wrote the track in her bedroom in July, she knew it stood out from the countless she’d written before.
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The word “amazing” barely scratches the surface when explaining the phenomenon “Try Me” has become. “It’s crazy,” she explains while cruising down a Motor City-area highway on this brisk December afternoon. All of this thanks to the spectacular effects of the smash success of her song “Try Me,” which became one of the biggest break-out hits of the year, and is made all of the more impressive since Dej was working as a custodian up until she walked out on her cleaning duties this past summer. And a month a half ago, she signed a deal with Columbia Records, linking up with the same team who helped turn Drake into a household name. Last week she made her late night television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
![dej loaf try me art dej loaf try me art](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4gyWc5T3-FE/hqdefault.jpg)
Rapper Dej Loaf is currently on her way to Detriot Metropolitan Airport, departing momentarily from her native city for a show at Charlotte, N.C.’s Club 935. to support a record deal with Columbia Records. Dej Loaf’s hit single has transported her from janitorial work in her native Detroit to jet-setting across the U.S.