Diana

“Everything you get from me, you get from my mom,” Famous Dex says midway through *Famous Dex - The Documentary*. “My momma had awesome energy.” Longtime Famous Dex fans are well aware that the conspicuously tattooed MC lost his mother to breast cancer even before he broke in his native Chicago, but in the clip—released at the same time as his *Diana* album—Dex spells out why he’s named this latest project after mom. Energy, specifically, has long been a calling card for Dexter, and he delivers it in droves across *Diana*. His signature “Oh man, goddamn” and “Uh-whoa” ad-libs are ever present, tucked away only for the few occasions he’s slowed the tempo (and maxed out the Auto-Tune) to sing about hurdles in his journey (“See the Pain”) and his love for marijuana (“Like Me”). Elsewhere Dex can heard rapping hurriedly about his come-up on “Covered in Diamonds,” how his crew has more fun than everyone else’s (“Made Like Us,” featuring Jay Critch), and recounting a long list of material loves on “Couped Out,” featuring Brooklyn drill upstart Fivio Foreign. The project also features Trippie Redd and Wiz Khalifa, two of the bigger-name features in Dex’s career, a testament, maybe, to just how far he’s come since his mom was alive. *Diana*, though, isn’t much different from most of the music we’ve gotten from Dexter over the years, and if his mom were around for it, she would likely be unsurprised by what she heard. It’s Famous Dex being Famous Dex, which, if he is to be believed, she had everything to do with.