Derez De'Shon

It took Derez De’Shon several tries, many years, and the death of one close friend to find his voice. But once he did, there was no doubting the Atlanta native’s craft, heart, or commitment to the rap game. Born Derez De’Shon Lenard in 1989, he started rapping under the alias D-Bo as a member of Dirt Gang, a crew with links to Waka Flocka Flame’s Brick Squad Monopoly label. But when fellow Dirt Gang member Slim Dunkin was murdered in 2011, Lenard temporarily put down the mic. Following a brief stint as D Dash, he returned under his given name in 2017 with Pain, telling stories of poverty, struggle and resilience with unusual candor. “Got two kids and plus I’m broke/We been sleepin’ on the floor,” he admitted on “Fed Up”, adopting a mournful, melodic flow over a luminous trap beat. His breakout hit, “Hardaway”, off the same mixtape, revealed Derez De’Shon’s facility for nimble wordplay as well as his powerhouse voice, one capable of expressing both trauma and triumph in the space of a single barked syllable. On 2018’s Pain 2 and 2020’s Pain 3, he let that same raw honesty be his guide, yielding a moody, melodic sound distinguished by its flashes of insight and uncommon vulnerability.