There wasn’t going to be another Nicki Minaj any time soon, but there also probably won’t be another Dej Loaf.ĭej returned to BET this October for the Hip-Hop Awards to perform her second proper single, “Back Up,” which features the Kanye West protégé and fellow Detroit native Big Sean. Perhaps, in Dej, Minaj finally saw a counterpart, a female rapper who could upend traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, rap and pop, hard and soft, as she herself had done before. She looked and sounded like nothing else in music, and her pull was evident: the single spent eight consecutive weeks on Billboard’ s Hot 100 chart, the video quickly gained thirty-three million views on YouTube, and Colombia Records signed Dej to an album deal.

The sparkling track was just as captivating both because of its earworm melody and because of the cognitive dissonance evoked by Dej’s high-pitched, childlike voice making boastful, intrepid threats with such sincerity: “Bitch I got the tommy, no Hilfiger/ Lil Dej ain’t bout it? Bitch, how you figure?” The video for “Try Me” pushed her further, revealing a baby face and an ambidextrous style: Dej wakes up in lingerie and fuzzy slippers but is soon sporting a W.W.E. What was different about Dej? At twenty-four years old, Dej, who is from Detroit, had produced one of the most surreal and unanticipated rap hits of the year with “Try Me,” which was self-released to the Web and soon championed by the likes of Drake and Wiz Khalifa. In the five years since she débuted, with the album “Pink Friday_,_” we’ve seen a handful of female hopefuls score modest hits or Internet accolades, but Minaj hadn’t offered such praise to a young peer before. And super forward.” A camera quickly found Dej in her seat, beaming, her own mother at her side. “You’ve been very, very interesting to me. And a special shout out to Dej Loaf.” Applause swelled from the audience. “To BET, thank you for always supporting women in hip-hop,” she said, and then broke her pageant poise with a furrowed brow and a few slow-rolling, carefully chosen words. She invited her mother up to accept the award with her-an unexpected gesture from the larger-than-life star.

This June, Nicki Minaj took the stage at the 2015 BET Awards to accept her trophy for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist. The music of Dej Loaf, whose “Try Me” is one of the year’s most surreal and unanticipated rap hits, is consistently resonant and surprising.

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