I just did what I did, I wrote music and played basketball. 'I didn't really have the urge to go do stuff that I knew I wasn't supposed to. 'I just tried to stay out of trouble as much as possible,' says Dej, 23, who started writing lyrics when she was 9 and whose surname stems from her love of loafers shoes. Making ends meet: Dej was raised by a single mom in the Detroit projects with her two brothers (her father was killed when she was 4).

Released this past summer, the song just hit No. 'It could've been a good thing they were looking, but I took it bad, so I stopped in the mall, pulled out my phone and recorded a voice memo.' That brief note soon became the sing-songy chorus of her melodic yet vicious Try Me, which she recorded just days after over a DDS-produced beat. Walking around with her friend one day, 'people were looking at us like they wanted to fight or something,' the rapper (real name: Deja Trimble) says.

Worth a Try: For Dej Loaf, even a stroll through the mall can turn into a breakthrough hit.

Dej loaf try me model