Kaash Paige Enters a New Chapter of Creative Freedom With Rostrum Records

Kaash Paige is no longer running on demon time. Recently baptized and freshly moved into a new North Texas home, the rapper and singer — whose real name is D’Kyla Woolen — is transitioning into a new chapter in her life. But not before exorcizing the demons that haunted her amid her rise to fame.

On Aug. 8, Paige dropped her new EP Kaashmychecks, named after an alter-ego she created in high school. The summer pack EP is her first major release since signing a deal with Rostrum Records.

“My dad was a ladies’ man,” Paige tells us over lunch at Taqueria La Banqueta in East Dallas. “I feel like I got that from him — that charm. I always was just talking to multiple girls at school, throwing parties, and stuff like that.”

As she got older, Paige maintained her “rager” energy. One of our first conversations took place in 2019 after she had just gotten signed to Def Jam. She was previewing new music from her debut album Teenage Fever while smoking a joint. In the years since, she’s earned the co-sign from artists like Alicia Keys, Don Toliver, 6lack and Beyoncé.
At the time of our most recent conversation, Paige estimates she’s “about two months” sober from all substances. The healthy steps she’s taken are evident by a smile on her face and an enthusiastic rollout plan as she’s now an independent artist.

Paige has been very strategic with Kaashmychecks, the namesake of which she describes as a “soulless” person — “That’s why you can’t see my face on the cover.”

She admits that she was “lit” while recording this EP, before she decided to go off “any and all substances.”

“That was a version of me that I never want to be again. I've grown,” she says. “She was a person who indulged in a lot of egotistical things. And there was that self-realization of being like, ‘Hey, you're a bad person when you're drinking. You're a bad person when your mind's altered.’
I've never been on red carpets and stuff,
so I had to be like ‘Well, look at the way you look. Look at your skin. You’re not taking care of yourself.’”

With each album and EP, Paige lets listeners know where she was mentally during the recording process. Much of Kaashmychecks was recorded in Los Angeles, and sonically the EP takes on a more rhythmic sound — ideal for strip club anthems.

“A lot of people know me from doing more melodic type of records,” says Paige. “And my last project [2024’s Catch Me While I Care] was all EDM. 
So everybody's like, ‘What the fuck is Kaash Paige doing?’ She's like losing it, and it's like, ‘No, I'm just trying everything.’ I want to have fun. And I want to be able to be on fucking Lollapalooza and Coachella. And you can't just be singing R&B the whole time, you gotta bring different vibes. I was just in a different world with this project, where I was like, ‘Yo, I want this to be able to be played in clubs. I've never had club music for real.’”

The EP has collabs with club heavyweights, including Juicy J and Los Angeles “ratchet and blues” singer Phabo (not to be confused with Fabo of Atlanta rap collective D4L).

The latter of the collaborators appears on the track “P4P,” which is short for “pay for pussy.”

“[Phabo] and I were talking about girls that use people for free meals,” Paige says of the song’s inception. “My mom’s favorite line is ‘that ho just wants a free meal,’ and we were talking about it in the studio when Phabo pulled up, and he was like, ‘You just got to pop your shit.’ I was like, “What does he mean by that?’ And my creative director was like, ‘Maybe he's just saying you need to flex.’ And I was like, ‘I'm not a flexer though.’ But he was like, ‘Maybe we could put that in a song.’”
Though Paige admits she’s “not much of a strip club person,” making this EP proved therapeutic for her and necessary for her to enter the next chapter of her life.

Paige says she’s in her “lover girl era” right now, but that she will soon drop a follow-up to Kaashmychecks detailing an unhealthy relationship dynamic.

“I'm healing now because we broke up,” says Paige. “But I'm ready for love, I just need to focus on myself right now, because I feel like in a relationship, if you're not with somebody that is trying to elevate as well, y'all end up only bringing each other down. And I think me and her were bringing each other down a lot. We were very codependent on one another.”

For now, Paige is getting settled in her new home in the suburbs. She still considers herself a Dallas girl at heart, but she’s chosen a home that allows her the peace she’s worked hard for. Though she’s lived in Dallas proper before, she says that she's looking forward to being able to step out of her home and not having to hide her chains and jewelry. Paige also believes that she’s living far enough away from the city to maintain an air of mystery.
“I like being lowkey,” Paige says. “I like to be out of the mix and then come back into the mix. Because I feel like when I come into the mix, it makes my star power so much more.”

With the major label system behind her, Paige feels more in control of her career than ever before. She’s excited about dropping music as she pleases and being more consistent with her releases.

One of the most remarkable moments of her career came last year, as she was touring in China. Many of her fans overseas didn’t know the actual lyrics to her songs, but she caught them humming along to the melodies perfectly.

Now, she is ready to get back to touring the states, especially in her hometown, which has held it down for her since the beginning of her career. With wiser eyes and a fresher outlook, Paige is ready to be a mainstay in Dallas’ bustling music scene.

“We've all come from different walks of life,” says Paige. “Obviously, we’ve got the OGs like Erykah Badu, Dorrough and so many more. Dallas has been on the rise for a minute, but I think right now it's about to get its real shine.”