Summer 2024 is looking very slizzy thanks to Cash Cobain’s viral hit “Fisherrr.”
The New York rapper and producer has set the city’s streets on fire with his Bay Swag-assisted sexy drill ballad, and thanks in part to a contagious dance trend (the Reemski), the track has turned into a moment, with the likes of Kai Cenat and Lala Anthony jumping on the wave.
Cash has been on a hot streak lately, heating up the city during its cold months. He dropped his second studio album, Pretty Girls Love Slizzy, last September, which featured sultry tracks like “Rump” and “Slizzy Dialogue.” Then he paid homage to the women in his life with “Dunk Contest” in January, before dropping “Fisherrr” a few weeks later—a song that’s fueled by the delayed impact of its beat drop, forcing you to stay locked into Cash and Bay Swag’s unique delivery of the word “for sure” until the bass finally comes in nearly two minutes (!) later.
“I want to do it how I want to do it,” Cash says, explaining why he chose to delay the beat drop. “I don't want to do anything the conventional way. What's the hook? The hook is the verse. I just like doing [different] stuff like that.”
Cash’s unconventional approach to New York rap is what helped make him a pioneer of the sample drill wave back in 2020, and now the “sexy drill” wave is becoming one of the most exciting (and successful) sounds in the city.
“It’s kind of perfect,” Cash says, explaining why sexy drill is resonating so strongly in the city right now after its more violent predecessor dominated for years. “We from New York. We gutter, we street, but we also want to have a good time. We want to get fresh, we want all the girls, and we want to be outside. We don't just want to be on kill time all the time. We just want to be fly. I think everybody wants to feel good, party, and just feel sexy.”
That energy was impossible to miss at Cash’s first annual Slizzyfest concert this week. The concert itself got shut down at Irving Plaza before it even started because of a fight outside, but Cash emerged from the venue shortly after and shepherded a hoard of his fans to Union Square Park down the block where he held an impromptu show. The whole scene felt uniquely New York, with Cash flanked by his MHPG Sound collective as he caught a bottle of Patron from the crowd. Hundreds of loyal fans partied around him, screaming tracks like “Fisherrr,” “Dunk Contest,” and “Wavy Lady” for all of midtown to hear.
As “Fisherrr” takes the city by storm, we spoke with Cash Cobain about the making of the song, unreleased music he has with Travis Scott and Lil Yachty, meeting Drake in-person, and more. The interview, lightly edited for clarity, is below.
You have the streets on fire, and it’s not even the summertime yet. How does that work?
I don't know, controlling the algorithm [Laughs]. That's what we're doing. We're just reconstructing it right now. We're just working.
Walk me through the making of “Fisherrr.” What was the studio session like?
I was with mad people. My studio sessions are crazy. I told Bay [Swag] to pull up like, “Yo, bro, I'm about to do a studio session,” and bro was there before me. When we got there, I pulled up this beat that me, WhoJiggi, and FckBwoy! made. I liked the beat drop, but it dropped too fast. So I'm like, “I don't wanna hear the beat yet. Just loop this part for me,” and then me and Bay jumped into the booth. We had girls in the booth, and we were just going crazy. One chick was annoying Bay Swag, and he was like, “I'm trying to work.” Then she asked me, “I'm annoying you?” I'm like, “Nah, you're my inspiration.” But it was fun, though. For me, making music is fun, so we didn’t put too much thought into it. But we knew it was fire though.
Why do you think waiting to drop the beat for so long works for this song?
I don’t think it works. I think it’s just me. I think it’s just my brain. I just want to do it how I see it working. I want to do it how I want to do it. I don’t want to do it the conventional way. I don't want to do anything the conventional way. What's the hook? The hook is the verse. I just like doing stuff like that. Just different stuff. I don't know why I did it that day, though. It felt right to me.
What was your reaction to seeing Kai Cenat do the Reemski dance on stream
That was crazy. I always wondered when Kai was going to tap in. We run the city. He’s from the Bronx and I’m from the Bronx. Shoutout to Kai Cenat. He definitely tapped in. We got to have a Slizzy AMP [stream]. It would be a movie.
We need to have a counter for how many times we all say “fisherrr” now, because it’s really a part of natural conversation.
That’s how it came about. I was on the phone with Bay Swag. We were just talking and he was like, “Yeah, for sure.” And I was like, “Nah, fisherrr.” It was just natural, and now we all say it.
“Fisherrr” feels like the sibling “Dunk Contest.” Were there any similarities in the recording of both of those tracks?
No. For “Dunk Contest,” I was in my room. I was on my Instagram and I had just seen the girls that I was talking about on the Finsta. But it just popped up in my mind, like, “I'm about to make a song about all of y'all.” I wrote it on my [Instagram] story.
And is every woman you name on the song a real person?
Yeah, shout out to all of them.
Why do you think “Fisherrr” is the perfect song for the Summer?
It’s got a dance, it feels good, and it feels fresh. It's not conventional. It's different. It's a breath of fresh air because a side of it is sexy drill, but the other side of it doesn’t sound like traditional drill. It don't sound mainstream. It’s sexy and smooth, but it’s still gutter. Even the On My Block video, it’s just different. It’s swaggy, but it’s New York still.
How does it feel to have created and popularized the new sound of New York City rap?
I don’t know. I just be doing it.
Does it feel like you have sons now?
Of course. You know I got sons. My sons know they’re my sons for sure. They want to dance like me, walk like me, rap like me, make a beat like me. But I don’t ever let that get to my head. I’m proud of that, to be the one to shift the sound and shift the towns.
Do you think about your influence when you see how far the song has reached now?
Even when I was in L.A… I was there with ATL Jacob. We were at the strip club, and they had played “Fisherrr,” and girls in the background just sang it. They know it. Even when I was walking into the club, girls would stop me and be like, “fisherrr.” I just be thinking to myself how this all started in the basement, just working hard. And now I’m at this point where someone in L.A. knows me. It don’t matter if it’s one person. That’s enough for me.
Why do you think Sexy drill is getting more popular than the old version of drill now?
Because it's not that “glah, glah, boom.” It's not that mainstream. It’s kind of perfect. We from New York. We gutter, we street, but we also want to have a good time. We want to get fresh, we want all the girls, and we want to be outside. We don't just want be on kill time all the time. We just want to be fly. I think everybody wants to feel good, party, and just feel sexy.
What are the qualities of a slizzy summer?
We're gonna have some parties, like a Slizznick. We’re going to have “Fisherrr” ringing out. The guys are going to have hits on their own to run the summer. If they not playing me, they playing [2219] Lee, they playing Vontee [the Singer], they playing Chow [Lee]. That’s what it sounds like to me. The shows, they need to get me on that Summer Jam stage. And just more Slizzy, we just be having fun.
Are we getting another album this summer?
Of course. Why wouldn’t I? It’s going to have some great features on it, too. We're doing it for the towns. New York is back. We never left, but we back.
What’s been inspiring you lately?
Just us, man. Us, women, and my surroundings.
What are the requirements for being slizzy?
Just be yourself, be free, and other things that I can’t talk about. Listen to the music.
You’ve had a lot of big moments already, but this one feels different right now. What makes this moment stand out from those other stepping stones?
Just building up to it. I kind of knew we were going to go crazy [with this song]. I didn't know we were gonna go this crazy, but I knew. We were going crazy last year, just from dropping my album. That's the first step, then I was just in the cut, just building, building, building up to this point. All of that just pushed this [moment], and this is going to push the next thing.
One of those moments was linking up with Drake in person. What was that like?Oh man, I ain't gonna lie. That felt crazy. That felt amazing, just meeting The Boy. He’s cool. I felt like that's my mans already [Laughs]. It's Slizzy OVO. That was a surreal moment, I had all of my brothers with me. We had a good time. It was almost unexplainable.
Travis Scott previewed some unreleased music he did with you at a different event. What was it like working with him?
I didn't even know he was going to do that. They wanted me to DJ the [Audemars Piguet] event. So I thought it was going to be [just] that. I started DJing and [Travis] was right next to me. I was like, “Oh shit.” I didn't know he was going to play [our song]. I'm like, “Wow, he must be jackin' us forreal.”
How did you even get connected with him to make that song in the first place?I’ve been locked in with Trav. Y’all just didn’t be knowing. I be knowing stuff before it comes to the forefront. It just be happening. It’s not about what you see. It’s what you don’t see. And me and [Lil Yachty] got crazy [songs]. We have to release it, because we have craziness, and a lot of it.
Is it tough for you to have all of these crazy unreleased tracks?
It's not hard, and I don't know why it's not hard. I do want to release it. I do want the fans to hear. I do want the people to hear it. But it’ll happen in due time. That's the way I look at it. In due time, it’ll come out. But you see Yachty will just throw something on TikTok and it’ll go viral. So it’ll come out.
Are there any more unreleased Drake songs in the vault?
It’s OVO Slizzy, man [Laughs]. We’re working, work never stops.
Are you able to fully experience these moments while you're in them, or do you feel them more after they happen?
I like being in the moment. I do want to live the moments again, but we always reflect. I just was talking to somebody earlier. I was like, “I miss the old days.” The simplicity.
