If you don't know who Childish Major is yet, you been 'sleep. It's okay though, we're here today to wake you up. To that effect, we had our writer Trevor Smith hop on the phone with Childish for an in-depth interview about his debut album, Woo$ah, which finds the artist delving into his new release-- including the collaborations with SZA and Isaiah Rashad, the sounds explored therein, his fairly easy move from a producer to a singer and much more. I highly recommend reading it here.
But, incase you're the "TL;DR" type, here's some choice excerpts pertaining to the album:
On the SZA & Isaiah Rashad "Happy Birthday" collab:
Me and Isaiah, we're friends before anything. I met him I think late 2013. It was around the time "UOENO" was going for me, he had just announced his signing to TDE. We kinda just connected through that, like, “you're on the come-up, I'm on the come-up too.” We built a brotherhood slash friendship. I was sending him ideas I was working on just to pick his brain. He was somebody who really believed in me. I ended up sending him the "Happy Birthday" record, and he was gonna use it for The Sun's Tirade, but my birthday came around the year before last, and I was like “ay man, I kinda wanna drop it.”
A little bit before that, he ended up having SZA do a bridge. She did it thinking it was gonna be for his project, but I also have a relationship with her too. I did "Green Mile" on her Z EP. There's actually a lot of music that we have that hasn't surfaced. I hit her up and got the okay from her. I didn't hit [TDE's] Top [Dawg] or Punch though [laughs]. I ended up getting a couple calls, some folks were a little upset. Me and Punch have a relationship, so he just said "You just gotta let me know next time, but you're good, you don't have to take it down." They let me rock, and that's a lot of people's introduction to me as an artist, which is really dope to be standing next to Isaiah and SZA who are incredible artists.
On DRAM:
I had the song done already, and this was my first time meeting DRAM. He came through the studio. This is off of "Cha Cha." We're having a conversation, and then he just raps. He's RAPPING, you know what I'm saying? And I'm not expecting that, cause I'm like ”bro, ‘Cha Cha’ is crazy and you got a crazy-ass singing voice.” But he's in that bitch freestyling over shit I'm playing. Not even recording, just freestyling, having fun.
On getting J. Cole production for "Supply Luh":
My first trip to [Cole's North Carolina home studio] The Sheltuh, I already had a project done -- I have another project, but that's neither here nor there -- so after me playing him beats and him playing me his songs I was like "you mind checking out some of my stuff?" He sat and listened and gave me feedback. Just giving me advice and stuff. He started going through beats and he let me pick some. He let me take like three or four beats and I started writing to them at The Sheltuh and when I got back to Atlanta I just recorded to them, just kind of sitting on them, not knowing what was gonna happen as far as him clearing me to release these songs. They were super cool about it. He was like, “do your thing.” I sent him the cover and he signed off on everything. And then the Insecure play came through. It was just perfect timing. I don't know, I just wasn't expecting them to be that cool about allowing us to use it.