Hailing from Serbia and singing the praises of America, an international dance-pop singer and fashion entrepreneur who emigrated then ventured to find herself through the United States runway is Didi J, supported by the guidance of legendary music and fashion icon Lady Gaga.
On December 24, she released her stylized, front-and-center, debut studio album Cover Girl.
On a bitterly cold evening day at her stunning place of residence in Belgrade, Serbia, Didi J spoke foremost and fondly of the permissible green light which has allowed her to clothe herself among the rising stripes of the American dream as the eye-catching headline attraction on the cover of a variety of pop culture monthlies.
“I work nonstop; I work everyday. I feel like if I’m not working one day, I’ve lost that day,” says Didi. “It’s not easy when you’re coming from a small country in Europe. People look at you differently, so you have to work ten times harder than other artists from the United States.”
“Flashing Lights” is a haunting Kanye West classic in the style of a violent martyrdom. Didi J sampled the song to create a glamorized version and reveled in partying with socialites in Miami to light up the once-eerie flashy music video and created her own fashion take as heard on the glitzy musical chorus.
“I’m not sure if I did that, says Didi, when asked if she was trying to recreate the song. “I took the song from my producer. It may be similar. But it’s not the same. I think Kanye would like it too.”
Beyond “Flashing Lights,” Didi J Supplements high fashionably pleasing star-studded collaborative appearances on Cover Girl, featuring superstar names from Iggy Azalea, NBA player and rapper Drummxnd, rapper She Real, and Lo Davis. Didi J is the party host who gathers together the people in unity and brings all these genres into an aurally appetitive ensemble to dance the night away.
Steadily strutting, sassy, and dressed to kill in chic and cheeky, modish outfits, Didi models the attention to what was the biggest highlight of her career. “My new album Cover Girl and my feature with Iggy Azalea. Iggy is amazing, and she’s very supportive. And then she heard that I’m also having a baby at the same time when she’s having a baby. She loved that, and she loved the idea that we were going to make a song together. It came out amazing, so I’m very proud of that project. It’s my biggest achievement until now.”
Since the beginning of Didi J’s expedition to the land of opportunity, she has been a fierce woman who knows what she wants and where she stands. If you’re not willing to sacrifice and hold on to that hustle, then you’re not willing to seize everything you’ve ever wanted.
“Murcielago” (otherwise translated after the Lamborghini sports supercar), featuring the new classic Iggy Azalea, is the post-Kanye West Mercy wave of dance-pop. The money-oriented pop banger materializes on well-dressed women pulling up in a fast luxury car and having infatuated beggar men beg in the pose of achieving their bag of goals, making money. There’s an apparent flow going from a calm state to braggadocio flex before the beat takeoff that quietly saunters through a sexy swagger; it grabs you by the throat, then practically dares you to cut the music. The song sets off calm and humble with Didi J’s simple, soft spoken bars that still don’t shy away from making a grand entrance and curbing broke boys with no room to share in her fast and fancy Murciélago sports car.
“I’m in a Murciélago/don’t even know how fast this car go. My summer heels, they cost a car note. I’m on that bullshit like Chicago/I’m ballin’ like I won the lotto. So much money I can’t count it no more. Swimmin’ in my Prada goggles. Tell them bitches they in trouble.”
Iggy Azalea, whose rags-to-riches upbringing compliments Didi J’s migrant circumstance, defying the idea that Serbian girls can’t soar and reach for the stars and be pop princesses. The in-your-face braggadocio track is helped out with the inclusion of Azia and Iggy Azalea, which features the triumvirate trilogy of women holding power. Azalea, in the driver’s seat like Eminem flaunts lyrical prowess to the verse she blacked out on and left earth with. “Pulled up in the Murci’/Got him askin’ for mercy. Caught a wave and y’all thirsty. Just come clean or I’ll do you thirty.” Confident enough to be unafraid of what they want or believe, these women easily ate the song up and left no crumbs.
Sounding like one of the Bronx’s biggest pop cultural exports of the Y2K-era Jennifer Lopez, Didi J wants to serenade “your attention” and “slay the world” on the vanity-exploit namesake track, “Cover Girl,” a sexy pop ballad about a female model whose picture appears on magazine covers and who fashions herself to be the world premiere, the exigent center of attention. In the vein of all of the lights, the camera, and the action, much like with the biggest music and fashion icon in popular culture, Didi J designed a gold performance dress for said legend, the Warholian Lady Gaga while she was on tour in Vienna, a like-minded support system in part by surrounding herself with people in the industry who will help reach her goals.
On the sweetly tuneful and restlessly in love recording “Sleep Deprived,” Didi speaks gently in her smooth lit, soft, easy singsong, “I can’t keep my eyes staying open/I can’t keep my lip far-away from you. I can’t keep my mind away from wondering/You just let my hands do what they do.” A slovenly, couldn’t-care-less, and solemn track about her sudden lash dealing with being intensively head-over-heels—but it’s hard to say whether or not she’ll recover from her tosses and turns in hopes that the object of her affection, her soul, he’ll keep. Falling in love, you’ll kiss your sleep goodbye.
She may lack Jennifer Lopez’s radio force with a loyal fanbase and a ravishing stage presence that captured and enraptured an audience worldwide—Didi’s rise is clothed in a fashion high note; hard work, self-discipline and a ferocious drive to stand out, slaying the music and fashion scene by any means necessary.
Didi J arrived in the states to not only make it in the bailiwick of glamor, fashion, and Western style popular music in America, but to plan world domination. The hard work necessary to achieve it, she is the go-get-it definition of a superstar living the American dream. “It took a while, but here I am.”