Music wasn't always the first thing that came to the non-explicit 20-year-old Hip-Hop artist L.E.X's. When L.E.X, real name Alexis Dean Jr., was growing up his first love was always basketball. Until the age of tragedy when at seven he lost his father, Diesel (Alexis Dean Sr.), a rap artist from Milwaukee, WI. After this happened, L.E.X internally used basketball and music to reconnect with him, so in middle school he began to get interested in making music for fun. It went from constant freestyling and making simple beats, to finally writing his own songs once in awhile but nothing serious. Basketball was still his first love, but when he was refused to play for his high school basketball team he used his spare time writing poetry, and soon converting it into songs. At the age of 16, he did his first two open mics, and after this his performing increased rapidly. In just his year of being seventeen, he won two talent shows, performed in over seven shows that summer (including for a crowd of 500+), began to work on his debut mixtape "PURE" (which released 01-01-10), and also got the opportunity to write a song for two schools including his school Rufus King. What attracts people to him is his ability to stay true to his roots, ignore the norms, and remain a lyrical young artist. His accomplishments are rising, fanbase is rising, statistics are rising, and his exposure is rising. Especially with the release of his second mixtape "RollingStone" on 9/11/10, EP "DOPE" featuring all original music, being on the T.V. show Spectrums, becoming 1/5 finalist in the world’s largest fest Summerfest Songwriting project contest, and blog sites exposing their viewers to him. His latest accomplishment has been being involved in Young Jeezy’s DJ Fahrenheit’s “Making The Next Hit” contest and becoming a finalist. With the opportunity in his hands to perform at the BET Awards and get a recording deal, the sky is the limit for this artist. After working with a producer of Bow Wow, and collaborating with various artists and doing features he has a bright future ahead and a lot of growth coming for him. Even though he has his own swag that he brings to Hip-Hop, being that he doesn’t curse or speak explicit at all in songs, his inspirations are Tupac Shakur and J. Cole with lyrical similarities to Lupe Fiasco. Only time will tell what is next for the kid who’s balancing college, being a teacher for toddlers, big dreams, and bringing something new to the discussion of Hip-Hop. Especially with his latest mixtape “A DayDream” featuring 16 songs and 8 being produced by himself, which released on his 20th birthday, March 4th. Let’s see where this can take him next. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.