Kaash Paige Reignites Her Buzz On EP ‘KAASHMYCHECKS’

Kaash Paige’s new EP KAASHMYCHECKS might sound like the wildest party you haven’t been to–and that’s exactly what the Dallas native set out for.

Kaash Paige steps into her uninhibited alter ego on KAASHMYCHECKS, blending trap, R&B, and raw confessions from her wilder LA days to her renewed Dallas roots.

The autotune-crooning singer-rapper, formerly on Def Jam Records, can’t be tamed on the six-track project, where she embraces her hedonist alter ego, appropriately named ‘KAASHMYCHECKS.’ Paige kicks off the festivities while under the influence of concert euphoria and tempting female fans on opener “GIRLSGONEWILD,” before falling deeply into self-indulgence on the EP’s remainder. It’s a toxic mixture of egocentrism and soullessness that the 24-year-old is aware of and, ultimately, had to escape.

“When your mind’s so altered all the time, you don’t really know what you want,” Paige tells AFROPUNK. “You don’t really know how to trust people. At least for me; my mind was constantly altered with smoking and drinking. I was a party animal.”

The artist, who relocated from downtown Los Angeles back to her hometown of Dallas in June, jokes that hosting functions on the West Coast was an “expensive vibe” that she’d grown accustomed to. But routinely being intoxicated left Paige distrustful of other partygoers and the lifestyle that she once relished.

“A lot of the stuff from the KAASHMYCHECKS era for me, personally, I don’t do anymore,” she says. “I don’t drink or smoke anymore. I was overindulging and I’m the type like, ‘We’ve got to finish the bottle.’”

“I feel like it made me very vulnerable,” she continues. “I had to just cut that out of my life and I felt like since I came back to Dallas, I’ve been very in tune with who I am and what I want for myself.”

Before returning to the South for a restart, Paige spent her final months in the City of Angels on demon time. Channeling the hazy nature of her past releases like Teenage Fever and S2ML, the vocalist unleashes on “2 Bad Bitches,” a strip-club-friendly trap cut where she’s on her most sapphic behavior. Paige rides high alongside Juicy J on the disorienting, bass-thumping “Pimp Daddy,” where she shows affinity for “desperate” women. Slick-tongued and suggestive, KAASHMYCHECKS exhibits the type of carnal pleasures that male rappers get away with, but Paige is just as unreserved about her rockstar habits.

“I was bringing the strip club to me,” she says. “At the time I had a penthouse in downtown LA, so it was like flexing the crib, flexing my Benz, just having a whole bunch of people around me, not making the best decisions and turning up with a lot of girls. [I was living] a very lustful life.”

Before KAASHMYCHECKS was planned, its moody closer, “Whole Lotta Swag,” was recorded first, originally meant for a fellow Southern act. “At first, it was just kind of like a loop ‘cause I was initially recording hook and melody ideas for 21 Savage,” Paige shares. “And then we came across one and I was like, Damn, I don’t know if I can give it to 21. I feel like I want this for myself.”

Keeping the song while developing other “turnt records” was another case of Paige measuring her own artistic integrity almost two years after parting ways with Def Jam. The artist signed to the storied hip-hop label at 18 years old, but as time went on, Paige observed a shaky infrastructure that she lost confidence in. The same label where Paige was put through tireless PR training, vocal and stage coaching became a hindrance as A&Rs were let go and head executives frequently changed.

“I just wanted change, I wanted to see what else was out there. I can’t stay in the same environment for a long time, hence why I move around so much,” she says. “I just texted [Def Jam CEO] Tunji [Balogun] and I was just like, ‘Hey, I really appreciate being a part of this legacy, but it’s something in me that just wants more and I want to experience another side of what the industry could be.’”

Three months after reaching out to Balogun, Def Jam released Paige, which allowed her to reflect on an admittedly rushed deal. “I used to tell everybody that in high school, ‘I’ll be famous one day. I’ll be signed to a record label,’” she recalls. “Everybody would be like, “Girl, all right, whatever.’ And when the contract came, I think I was just so quick to sign it because I was just like, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever get this chance again.’”

“But I know if I didn’t sign it, I would be a multi-millionaire right now because “Love Songs” is obviously one of my biggest records,” she continues. “That song has two or three billion streams globally, if not more. Obviously, I’d be a multi-millionaire, but God was very intentional and I needed that.”

With one foot in her KAASHMYCHECKS chapter, Paige has her sights on releasing an R&B album before the end of the year. Both projects will be heard live on her eleven-date Better Than Revenge Tour, which begins in October. While true to Paige’s wide-ranging sound, the R&B LP will be just as elevated as her evolving approach to romance.

“I’m realizing I need to grow up if I want to experience real love. It’s easy to get any girl. It’s easy to turn up. All these girls want, especially the ones that I met in LA, they all want the same thing. They just want to be tricked on and as my mom likes to say, ‘Them hoes just want a free meal.’”

The realization for Paige to eschew relationship toxicity came following a recent heartbreak, which the singer’s next project is based on. “I realized I really do like being in love. But that KAASHMYCHECKS version was still a part of me, so it was very hard for me to be fully committed. I feel like I was just hurting her in the process and we were just really damaging one another,” she confesses.

While planted firmly in her R&B and hip-hop roots, Paige wants to incorporate EDM and diversify her range to take crowds on a sonic journey. With KAASHMYCHECKS picking up where Paige left off, she’s learned to trust her instincts and continue to let them serve as a guide.

“Throughout my whole career, making R&B has been amazing. I’m always going to make R&B. But I think I realized at the festivals that shit gets really boring. Like, nobody wants to sit around and hear that. And so, sometimes it makes me laugh when I hear, ‘We missed the old Kaash. Why are you not putting out R&B?’ I’m going to put out R&B, but I’m an artist, I’m a chameleon.”