Atlanta is always at the forefront of culture. Whether that’s fashion, arts, sports, and most apparent, music. The waves that have stemmed out of Atlanta have birthed many stars and created countless others. Derez De’Shon is a prime example.
When he popped out with “Hardaway” back in 2017, it was so different, that it didn’t catch on right away. Derez bared his soul on the track, layering his melodic style so perfectly over the piano-key laced beat, it was a sound we hadn’t heard from Atlanta yet. We’ve heard artists’ over piano keys before, think of A Boogie, but we never heard it with the pain and this much trench before. It would take a couple months, but the song caught on with the masses and exploded. The song became an Atlanta classic, heard at every club, college function, and stop light. Everybody was screaming ‘Hardaway’ and the over 205 million views on YouTube cemented that. The song was beyond Atlanta, it was going viral, which meant the world had caught on to it.
Derez made it cool to show your feelings. Something that Atlanta music wasn’t hip to yet. With Young Thug and his style rising at a meteoric pace back in 2017, Derez was a refreshing compliment to him. Derez showed that you can talk about your issues or shortcomings, and that it is okay to be vulnerable. In doing so he made a lane for a bunch of new artist to do their own version of this.
Derez De’shon is without a doubt an OG of pain music. Without Derez De’shon we would have no Polo G who has blown up and become so successful by rapping over the exact same kind of beats. We wouldn’t have a Lil Tjay, who added his own New York flavor and created his own version of pain music. He even crossed over to pop and influenced white international artists with his sound, for example a Kid Laroi. Derez made a lane for himself and others with his sound and that can never be taken away from him.
Now Derez is back and ready to reclaim the throne he abdicated. He’s been quiet for his own personal reasons, he knew he wasn’t in the best mental state and sometimes the best way to fix that is disappearing all together. So he stayed away from the limelight, to the point people questioned if he even cared about making music still. Which is an emphatic yes, the real ones never forgot. Ask Atlanta legend Russ, one of the coldest artists from our city. He collaborated with Derez on their hit song ‘Fallin,’ where Derez brings his signature style onto a track with another rapper that makes excellent emotional music. And this year, we will be getting a lot more of it. Derez will be dropping soon, his new album I’m Not Okay, is fastly approaching, and as one can probably infer from the title, it will have all the feels we have grown to love from Derez. History always repeats itself, and we don’t know it will when Derez finally makes his return. But I’m sure, like he did in 2017, he will birth a new legion of disciples from his sound, and honestly that is exactly what Atlanta needs right now.
What is the lesson you learned Da Hardaway?
That I learned the hard way? don’t put your trust in nobody but yourself.
Why was 3 Da Hardway the song you wanted to start the year with?
It’s actually a Golf Mouf single, and he was ready. He just dropped “Trapper of the year,” and he did the song with me and Ralo. And it was big because, you know, I’m saying Ralo dropped his album. He just got out of prison. I’m about to drop an album. Gold Mouf working on the album. So it was like, perfect synergy.
You’ve been through a lot in your life and show and you can hear it in your music, yeah. What are three things you would tell your younger self about staying focused and pushing through hard times?
Leave the drugs alone. Believe in yourself. Don’t second guess yourself.
One thing I do know, like you just said, leave the drugs alone. You are sober now. Yes. What led to this decision?
Honestly, man, I had a couple of bad encounters with drugs. One, my heart stopped on the plane before it took off, it stopped multiple times, and I could have died if the plane would have took off. They told me my heart would have exploded. Like just being out, you know, always high and waking up grumpy and angry at the world. It’s like it never changed, like I chased the high chasing the demon to meet him again in the morning. So, yeah, I’m cool.
Like a lot of artists talk about the grind, but it can be a lot. How do you deal with the pressures of success?
Why I’ve been chilling for a minute. I had to sit back. Get my mind right. I got to get off of the drugs. I had to clean up a little bit, man. I had to get my spiritual right. Had to get my mental right. Be more active with my kids, because my whole career, I’ve been in and out, in and out, so I spent a little more time with them, just so I can balance myself. I have days where I get weak sometimes, and breakdowns and episodes, but, you know, daily working on
What is your relationship with God?
Great. God is my best friend. I know without a doubt he gonna rock with me whatever I’m going through, what I’m doing wrong or right, and I talk to him when I do wrong or right, just guide me through my step. I ain’t perfect.
They say money changes those around you more than it changes you. Have you felt that, and how did you handle it?
Yes, I definitely felt it, and for the longest I acted as if I could control the change, but I couldn’t, because I thought loyalty would make it, you know, like, for example, Hey, this is flaw. Let me keep him away from me when I’m doing this type of stuff. You better create his flaw to happen. But in the long run, I shouldn’t have been the one making the adjustments, you see, I’m saying. So what I did was I had to separate myself from and it hurt, like losing a lot of friends I grew up with, like not only to those type of situations, but to death, to jail, to jealousy, like it hurt. I just met and I had to keep going. I had to make my kids my obligation. That’s what I’m loyal to, not even to myself, to my kids.
What’s something about the music industry you wish you knew before you got into the game?
That it is exactly what it is. The music industry is a business. It’s not a real brotherhood, even though you may meet some artists that will lock in with you for real, but it’s like, I went in, you know, thinking like, oh shit before, but they don’t fall, which when you got something going on, you know, like he like the female, if you that nigga, they gonna fall with you.