Certified Fresh: Isaiah Rashad - A Rookie With Veteran Capabilities

There’s a gap between the golden age and today’s Hip-Hop. It’s unarguable, but on the same token, we contend that the south does a better job at staying true to their rap lineage. From true lyricism to straight game spitting — from Outkast to Master P or Big K.R.I.T. to Young Thug — the south’s top tier talent always had this dichotomy. Somewhere in between, we find Isaiah Rashad, a Chattanooga, Tenn. native with a thoughtful point of view and a commercial appeal. He also just happened to be drafted by Hip-Hop’s hottest collective, Top Dawg Entertainment.

Prior to joining the West Coast-based label, Rashad hadn’t created a full-length project. There were just clusters of songs for the Internets’ enjoyment. Yet, he was able to capture the southern aesthetic and introduce a distinct sound without creating a dated body of work on his debut EP, Cilvia Demo.

There’s no country for lackluster talent in TDE, so Rashad’s lyrical prowess goes without saying. His allure reaches far past his natural way with words, though. Simply put, the southerner’s common man appeal is his X-factor, one that gives his music a warmth that invites listeners into his world. Earnest attempts at crooning, distorted vocals and well placed ad-libs play into the way Cilvia Demo sounds more than listeners realize.

Surely this can’t be the kid’s first full-length creation, right? One would think this was true, but since it isn’t, we’d say a line from Rashad’s track, “Banana,” perfectly describes him: “Just wait till I get this sh*t perfect.”

Hip-Hop Wired recently picked the rising MC’s brain to see where his head was at. Peep more about Isaiah Rashad, our latest Certified Fresh feature, below.

Who: Isaiah Rashad, 22, hails from Chattanooga, Tenn. He’s seen what the streets are like, but was never an active participant in that life. Instead, the MC bounced from job to job after dropping out of school, awhile dreaming of doing music professionally. In the process, he had a son, which greatly affected him, because his own father left his family when he was just three-years old. That drive inspired the young wordsmith’s music moving forward, and by luck of the draw and some music industry connections, Rashad made friendly with TDE. As the saying goes, the rest was history.

Credentials: Prior to the Cilvia Demo EP, Isaiah Rashad hadn’t produced a single full-length project. Outside of some loose tracks, which garnered minimal YouTube and Soundcloud views by today’s standards, he had nothing. However, he was still on record label’s radars off of raw talent alone. He’s a self-proclaimed Erykah Badu stan, and that soulful influence can be heard in his production choice, cadence, and topic matter.

Fun Fact: Isaiah Rashad spent a week in jail for marijuana possession. He only had a roach (the very end of a joint), and was arrested as he was pulling up to his home in Chattanooga.

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Photo: Justin Hogan, YouTube

Hip-Hop Wired: These days, it’s rare that an artist gets signed before releasing a project. What made you wait so long to release an official body of work?

Isaiah Rashad: I took my time with making my first project. I took a decent amount of time between when I first started making music til now so I can get good practice in and kind of build up my own stuff, rather than throw out some stuff I just came up with.

HHW: Cool. Speaking on Cilvia Demo‘s cover, are those scratched out words tentative titles?

HHW: I hear a lot influences in the project’s sound, but what better way to get that info than from the horse’s mouth? Who were some of your influences for the sonics?

Isaiah Rashad: Sonically, if my project was mostly influenced by somebody I listen to, it would be Erykah Badu, as far as how it flows and there being a lot of stuff going on the whole time. And of course Outkast — like ATLiens — and Q and Soul and them, the way they put their projects together. I talked to them about the right way to do stuff. They didn’t give me a whole bunch of game on it. It more of you just have to learn on your own, but they gave me some guidance to it. That’s really it.

It was just me and my homies. All the beats and stuff, we came up with them together. Most of the dudes on the project, except like two producers, was really in the house with us the whole time. We cooked it up. I know everybody that produced on the project.

Isaiah Rashad: The story behind the artwork for the project is they were all names that could have been the project, and they were different ideas that I had since I started. When I first decided that I was gonna really make a project, it started from Pieces of a Kid, Fake Trill, Khaki, and all that stuff. It kind of symbolizes the direction to start with and really go in head first.

HHW: I noticed that one of the scratched out titles on the project was Preacher’s Son. Since you mention your father’s absence a lot on the EP, was that title a form of release therapy?

Isaiah Rashad: Preacher’s Son actually didn’t have anything to do with my dad or anything like that. It was more of something I was working on with my homies. Even Fake Trill, that was something I was working on with my homies back in Chattanooga, Tennessee like way be before all this. I was trying to pay homage.

HHW: How does your old Honda Civic, “Cilvia,” play into your life story?

Isaiah Rashad: The significance of car with my story and my project — it’s kind of the ending of a chapter in my life. I’m kind of… not kind of, I’m telling you to get you up to speed with all that. That’s why Cilvia Demo is a demonstration of different styles I’m going to try out with this new chapter in my life, while giving you all the old stuff.

HHW: I read somewhere that you had your sights on TDE prior to signing. What made the label so appealing?

Isaiah Rashad: Before I signed, I had always looked up to TDE. They had always been people I had kind of admired and looked up to their business model they had done, and the music, the quality. That’s what really attracted me to the label and the group; quality over quantity. They just move different. They some real dudes. You can tell.

HHW: You’re the youngest member of TDE, correct? With that in mind, what do you bring to the clique?

Isaiah Rashad: Yea I’m the youngest out of TDE right now. If I can think of anything I brought to TDE, it would be a little bit of naivety, you could say. I’m new to stuff, and they’re real seasoned. I can come off as seasoned sometimes, but I’m just the young one. I guess it can be fun for them to teach me some stuff, since they already been schooled by the game already.

Freshness would be the world [I’d say]. Something like that. Not something necessarily better, but something added to it.

HHW: Doubling back to the EP, did Cilvia Demo come out as you planned, or is there something you would change?

Isaiah Rashad: What’s cool about the Cilvia Demo is that it came out exactly how it was supposed to come out. Every song on the project was like one of our favorite song for at least a month, weeks at a time. It’s like, when we recorded, it was the only song we listened to.

I feel like it came out and it sounds a type of way. And we’re getting reception from it about how everyone says they feel in any given day. I think we put it out pretty good.

HHW: Last question. One line that stuck out to me was on “Modest.” It says, “I’m too young and wild to be the savior.” Could you explain that?

Isaiah Rashad: The line that you’re referring to — “I’m too young and wild to be the savior” — was really for me. I don’t really look up at the expectations other people put to me now. The expectation I really had for myself was to make this project and to complete something. All the stuff that comes with doing what you’re doing, and coming from where I come from, they saying stuff like I’m the first one in a long time coming out of Chattanooga putting on for this and putting on for that.

I accept all that, but at the same time, I’m just going to be me at the end of the day. I’m not worried about that.

Essentials:

“Shot You Down”

“Ronnie Drake”

“Like That”

“Fake Trill”

“Soliloquy”

“West Savannah”