Isaiah Rashad Returns With New Single “Lay Wit Ya” Featuring Duke Deuce
Isaiah Rashad gets personal for The Fader‘s May 2021 cover story.
After an extended absence, TDE rapper Isaiah Rashad is getting to release a new album. The enigmatic Chattanooga, Tennessee MC has released his new single, “Lay Wit Ya,” which features an appearance from crunk Memphis rapper Duke Deuce.
The song is the first new Rashad track since last year’s “Why Worry.” “Lay Wit Ya” features a killer sample of Three 6 Mafia’s “Ridin In Da Chevy.”
For the energetic video, which was directed by Omar Jones, we see Rashad head to a party where Deuce and his dance moves take center stage. The song is the first single from Rashad’s upcoming album, The House Is Burning, which is expected to come out in June.
It’s been a long journey for Rashad. The rapper has not released an album since 2016, when he dropped The Sun’s Tirade. Journalist Jeff Weiss recently sat down with Rashad for the May 2021 Fader cover story.
The profile details Rashad’s many struggles since the start of his career — culminating in a stint at the Dana Point rehab facility in Orange County, California. There, Rashad revealed, he was prescribed an anti-seizure medication to treat frequent severe panic attacks.
“There wasn’t a whole bunch of recovery [after The Sun’s Tirade],” he admitted. “I just went into the interviews and told niggas I fucked my life and health up. Then I went on tour and it ain’t like a lot of shit had changed. If anything it got worse, but it just didn’t look as bad outwardly because I had so much going on.”
Rashad has openly struggled with a creative block in recent years, and in the profile he expounds on the situation. “I took it seriously,” he says of recording new music, “but I was drunk in the studio and trying my best to make my confidence swell way larger than it actually was at the time. I couldn’t pull off even acting like I wanted to rap for money, or like I wanted to rap to express myself. I didn’t know exactly how to put into words what I felt.”
This story was updated on Friday May 7th.