The Singles Jukebox

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[6.86]

Crystal Leww: “Try Me” is just paradox abounds, with Dej Loaf sweetly, quietly melodically rapping close to a coo and the beat twinkling along while the lyrics tell a story about how Dej Loaf will fuck you up if you try her. “Try Me” is the quiet late-night driving song that “Studio” wanted to be; this will lull you to a hum on the highway while still keeping you awake and alert.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: The beat glistens, and Dej Loaf’s delivery so relaxed: the way she stretches the last syllable of most of these words, bringing them to near sing-song makes it easier to miss how intimidating her words are.
[8]

Anthony Easton: I always feel dumb explaining what I love in hip hop, but I like confidence, minimal production, well-constructed beats, elegant flow, and functional metaphors, and I like when it moves on the right side of menace. This has all of that. 
[8]

Micha Cavaseno: Way too mush-mouthed to enjoy, and a lot more Ryan Hemsworth than The Invasion on the post-hyphy turning into ‘CLOUD RAP.GIF’ spectrum. Also, the “I’m a Nazi” bar is pretty fucking bad, and only the peak among a pile of shitty bars.
[0]

Alfred Soto: Except for a moment at 1:50 when she trips over herself, this is a minor masterpiece of minimalist malevolence. “Turn a bitch to some macaroni” over those spongy keyboards and delivered in Dej’s quiet second grade teacher’s voice is creepy shit. “I’m a Nazi” though? Dumb shit.
[7]

Brad Shoup: I love when a artist hits the hook like it’s some long-held face, and so it is here. The matter-of-fact malevolence rubs against her craft; the shiver she puts on “playin'” is a trick she’s clearly proud of. Put that against the New Age grace of the production — ever-present yet backgrounded — and it’s the feel-chill song of the fall.
[9]

Jonathan Bradley: Dej Loaf is from Detroit but she sounds like she’s floating in space. Other Rust Belt rappers have evinced a taste for synthetic vibrance, but the production on “Try Me” isn’t just perpendicular to the Motor City’s post-industrial decay, it’s a million light years removed from it. There’s some Chicago in her flow — drill with the tactility evaporated: the rounded slurring repetition of Chief Keef, say, or the dull-eyed delivery of Katie Got Bandz, as if she were only rapping by accident. But most eerie is that she sounds like she isn’t anywhere. The void through which “Try Me” floats is a physical manifestation of a moral vacancy. There is nothing nice in Dej Loaf: she revels in the visual quality of murder, from blood-bubbled stomachs to shredded skulls. “I been out my mind since they killed my cousin,” she reflects, and if it’s not in sorrow, it’s also not a threat. “I don’t wanna do no songs and I don’t wanna kick it,” she intones towards the end. No passion, no hope: a nebula of nothing.
[8]